Sri Lanka - Big Lessons from a Small Country!

You do not spot any garbage, plastic waste and rubble on the drive from the Bhandaranaike International airport right up to downtown Colombo, the capital city. In Colombo too, every road, street and by-lane is spotlessly clean. You do not find motorists chucking plastic and paper wrappers out of cars and nobody is found spitting on the roads.

It was also heartening to see the respect accorded for pedestrian crossings. The moment a pedestrian steps on a designated crossing, all motor vehicles come to a grinding halt. No motorist breaks this rule and follows it even in the absence of police personnel. As we learnt very soon, the fine for not stopping at a pedestrian crossing or breaking a red light is Sri Lankan Rupees (LKR) 2,500.

According to Colombo based businessman Kanapathy Sritharan, the strict pedestrian crossing rules started getting implemented about five years ago. “Presently, school children across Sri Lanka are being taught daily skills of crossing roads in a practical manner,” he said.

We spent five days in the capital city and wondered if the cleanliness and traffic discipline was restricted to the metropolis alone. However, the cleanliness and traffic discipline trail followed us through the historical towns of Polonnaruwa, Piturengala, Kandy city and the popular hill-station of Nuwara Eliya.

What was interesting to note was the presence of clean washrooms in all the tourist destinations. Unlike India, where we often see motorists relieving themselves on highways, Sri Lanka did not present any such ugly sights.

In the 2014 book, ‘Municipal solid waste management in Asia and the Pacific islands: challenges and strategic solutions’ authors, Benedict Basnayake and Visvanathan Chettiyappan refer to the Sri Lankan government’s ‘Pilisaru’ waste management program which was launched in 2008 with the aim of making the island nation ‘waste free’ by 2018, a goal the country seems to have achieved.

The magic mantra for achieving this ‘waste free’ goal has been the Sri Lankan government’s dogged insistence on garbage segregation (wet and dry garbage) at source. A point which is extremely relevant to Goa and India.

The need for garbage segregation at the household level was disseminated by the Sri Lankan government through a mass-awareness campaign on TV, radio, newspapers and through posters and leaflets.

Most importantly, waste management officials went door-to-door explaining the need for segregation of wet and dry waste. The government has also made the subject of ‘waste management’ compulsory from classes VI-IX in all Sri Lankan schools.

Of course, the government also put an integrated waste management infrastructure in place which included setting up 120 composting centres, 22 bio-gas plants and providing multiple tractors, compactors, excavators and composting bins across the country.

Says businessman, Sritharan, “Civic sense is very high in our country. We have a literacy rate of over 90 per cent.” According to Sritharan, the segregated garbage collection rule is strictly imposed. “The private collectors or the municipality will refuse to collect your garbage if it is not neatly segregated. They will also report you to the authorities.”

The waste segregation message seems to have percolated right down to the towns and villages as well. Up in the hills of Ella (1,083 metres) school teacher Bandula Arunashantha’s family runs a home-stay facility. Says Bandula, “Normally, almost every house in our hill-town has a compost pit. We ourselves recycle the wet garbage. We handover the plastic and polythene to the recycling centres.”

If that is not all, the island nation has achieved success in making their roads safer too. For starters, it is mandatory for all two-wheeler riders to wear helmets. This includes the rider, the passenger and even little children (see picture of an entire helmeted family).

Failure to wear a crash helmet on a two-wheeler attracts a fine of LKR 2,500. Says policeman turned tourist taxi driver, Anura Mudithananda from the coastal town of Negombo, “The strict fine is good deterrent. Everybody follows the helmet rule now.”

Just how serious the Sri Lankan government is about road safety can be gaugedfrom a report uploaded on the Lankan news portal, adaderana.lkas recently as April 2, 2019. The report states that the ministry of transport and civil aviationwill present a gazette notification before the country’s Parliament proposing fines of LKR 25,000 for seven traffic offences which includedriving without a valid driving licence, deploying persons without driving licence in services, driving under the influence liquor and drugs and driving a vehicle without a valued insurance cover, among others.

Goa and India has a lot to learn from this small island nation.