Federalism in Sri Lanka

Federalism has long been advocated as a means of resolving the ethnic issues and unbalanced development in Sri Lanka. As the unitary state has resulted in uneven development across Sri Lanka the Western Province dominates over the other 8 provinces. Despite declining regional disparity Western province continues to contribute most to the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) contributing 42% of the GDP while the second highest the Southern Province only represents 10.8% of the GDP while Uva and Northern provinces represnting the least with 5% and 3.6% respectively. Other provinces also have trouble attracting capital and have This has resulted in calls for the abolishing of the unitary system and powers being devolved.[1][2][3]

Further federalism has also been proposed as an solution the ethnic issues. The Tamil minority is under represented despite being the majority in the Northern province. This also lead to a civil war between the government and Tamil Nationalist militants.[4] After the end of the war Northern province shares the troubles of finding funds to rebuild damaged infrastructure and as a result of provincial governments being unable to finance the reconstruction of destroyed factories and damaged infrastructure to create employement. Federalism has been proposed as a method for sharing power.[5][4]

Several heads of states such as S.W.R.D Bandaranaike, J.R Jayawardena, Chandrika Kumaratungea have also accepted Federalism as a solution to the island's issues however did not implement a federal system.[4][6][7]

References

  1. ↑ Achieving Balanced Regional Development through Devolution. "The Island". www.island.lk. Retrieved 2016-09-17.
  2. ↑ Lanka, Gamini Gunaratna, Sri Lanka News Paper by LankaPage.com (LLC)- Latest Hot News from Sri. "Sri Lanka : Western Province major contributor to Sri Lanka\'s economic growth despite decline in regional disparity". www.colombopage.com. Retrieved 2016-09-17.
  3. ↑ "Provincial Gross Domestic Product – 2014" (PDF).
  4. 1 2 3 "Online edition of Daily News - Features". archives.dailynews.lk. Retrieved 2016-09-17.
  5. ↑ "We Are Looking At A Federal System Within A United Sri Lanka – E. Saravanabavan | The Sunday Leader". Retrieved 2016-09-17.
  6. ↑ "Can We Drop the 'Federalism vs. Unitary' Debate and on What Grounds? | Asian Tribune". www.asiantribune.com. Retrieved 2016-09-17.
  7. ↑ "CBK calls for a federal semi-secular constitution". www.dailymirror.lk. Retrieved 2016-09-17.

External links

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