Sri Lanka 2030: A Developed Nation – Dhammika’s action plan launched

September 25, 2019

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‘Sri Lanka 2030: A Developed Nation,’ a strategic plan for sustainable development of the Sri Lankan economy, written by business tycoon Dhammika Perera, Chairman of Vallibel One PLC, was launched on Tuesday (24) at the auditorium of Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management. Perera, used a public sector forum titled “Changing Role of the Public Servant” to launch his vision and plans for the country. In his policy paper Dhammika Perera discusses the process of making Sri Lanka a developed country by the year 2030 and also discusses the procedures need to be followed. The main aim of the document is to lay out an economic growth strategy and action plan to increase GDP per capita income from the current $ 4000 to $ 12,000. The Economic Growth Strategy, presented by Perera showcases a sustainable development of the Sri Lankan economy via 21 ministries comprising; Finance and Planning, Education, Higher Education, Technical, Vocational Education and Training, Social Development, Regional Development, Agriculture and Agro Based Industry, Investment Promotion and Job Creation, Transport and Civil Aviation, Ports and Shipping, Tourism, Power and Energy, Information and Communication Technology, Health, Environment and Natural Resources, National Security, Foreign Affairs, Youth and Sports, Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony, and Arts and Culture.

Read the full document below;

Discussion Policy Paper: Volume 1

“Changing Role of the Public Servant”

01. MINISTRY OF NATIONAL SECURITY

A NATION RICH IN SAFETY AND FREEDOM

“Sri Lanka’s security policy is to secure the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and the safety of the citizens.” Dhammika Perera

Action Plan

Enhance National Security.
“Zero Tolerance” policy against terrorism and extremism, to be introduced.
Intelligence operations of the tri-forces and the Police to be the responsibility of one head, for effective communication among all units.
Treat “intelligence” as a professional service and recruit the best talent on an attractive salary scale to this service.
Introduce a legal framework to protect all intelligence officers from political interference.
Connect intelligence officers with foreign intelligence services and provide them with local and foreign training along with modern technological equipment.
Reinforce coastal safety and border protection.
Create a more effective framework for the welfare and resettlement of soldiers.
Digitalise the police with biometric technologies.
Implement facial recognition technology through surveillance cameras to identify criminals and terrorists at any given place.

Action Plan

Goals: Create a better Sri Lanka through finance

Sound fiscal management; to ensure that the revenue to support investments in Sri Lanka’s social and economic priorities is raised and spent in a fair, responsible and efficient way.
Precision poverty reduction; allocation of modern technologies to identify poor households and population through 50 indicators evaluating key factors that contribute to poverty in these households; and allocate investments to reduce poverty levels to that of a developed nation.
Development of human capital; prioritise upgrading of primary, secondary and tertiary education, and ensure enrolment of 50% of students to public and private universities. Rebrand and upgrade the quality of Technical, Vocational and Educational Training (TVET) and ensure enrolment of 40% of students to TVET education, thereby only 10% of students fall into the unskilled labour market.
Sound social policy framework; to support the Government’s efforts to promote equal opportunities for all citizens across the country and to meet the Government’s priorities for promoting jobs, transforming the agricultural sector (inclusive of increasing agricultural productivity of farmers, farmers’ household income, equitable consumption of a safe, affordable, nutritious diet year around, and women’s empowerment in agriculture), and economic growth.
Inclusive and sustainable economic growth; to create the conditions necessary for strong, long-term and clean economic growth, thereby increasing Sri Lankans’ standard of living and well-being.

Sri Lankan population growth per annum is an average of 190,000. Therefore, in order to maintain the current economy, it is necessary to create an additional 62,400 jobs per annum.

(Source: Jobless Growth, World Bank, 2018)

Okun’s law states that for every 1% decrease in the unemployment rate, gross domestic product increases by 3%. Establish and implement a district-wise job generation plan to decrease unemployment. This is to be monitored monthly and Government to aid private sector investments. The Laffer curve illustrates a relationship between rates of taxation and the resulting levels of Government revenue. It illustrates the concept of taxable income elasticity i.e., taxable income changes in response to changes in the rate of taxation. A key reason for the lack of investments into the Country at present is primarily due to incorrect tax rates as our current rates tax investors higher than our competitors, thereby discouraging investments into the country. Therefore, it is required to maintain a tax rate at the revenue maximising point in order to attract the highest possible investments into the country. Changing the tax and custom duty policies, to increase greenfield and brownfield, local investments and foreign direct investments, for economic growth, increased district-wise job generation, and goods and service exports.

During the past 14 years direct Government tax revenue on a cumulative basis was Rs. 2,481 billion whereas Rs. 2,405 billion was incurred as an additional payment due to rupee depreciation to make foreign borrowings increase to Rs. 5,959 billion by last year. Therefore, to stop the rupee depreciating beyond 2% – 3% it is essential to bring in investments, especially foreign direct investments and enhance exports regardless of the direct tax revenue.

Policies relating to the Department of Inland Revenue

Total Government revenue in 2018 was Rs. 1,919 billion. An Artificial Intelligence (AI) based monitoring system to be introduced to both Customs and the Department of Inland Revenue for the purpose of monitoring evasions (after introducing IBM Watson in Switzerland Custom revenue increased by 10%), after which Government revenue will be increased by 15%, generating an additional Rs. 287 billion.

1. To maintain the current rate of corporate tax for the following industries;
  - Financial services, except insurance and pension funding
  - Wholesale trade except of motor vehicle and motor cycles
  - Manufacture of tobacco products
  - Telecommunication
  - Gambling and betting activities

whilst reducing the current rate of dividend tax and capital gains tax to 0% (which will help in additional job generation).

Reduce the current rate of corporate tax to 0% and provide a guarantee for new ventures through an agreement with the BOI, at the reduced rate for the next 25 years.
- Education
- Information service activities (Any type of BPO, KPO, provision of infrastructure for hosting, data processing services and related activities, web portals, news syndicates and news agency activities furnishing news, pictures and features to the media, computer based telephone information services, information search services on a contract or fee basis and news clipping services, press clipping services and other digital services)
- Human health activities
- Air transport
- Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailer
- Waste collection, treatment and disposal activities; materials recovery
- Water collection, treatment and supply
- Sewerage
- Manufacture of other transport equipment
- Fishing and aquaculture
- Remediation activities and other waste management services
Reduce the current rate of corporate tax to 12% for existing ventures not mentioned in points 1 and 2.
Reduce the current rate of corporate tax to 12% for new ventures not mentioned in points 1 and 2 and provide a guarantee for the reduced rate for the next 25 years for all sectors (in the Western Province) and for the other eight provinces to be granted a discount of 80%, thereby charging an effective rate of 2.4% (which will help in additional rural district-wise job generation).
PAYE tax of 12% will only be charged beginning from a monthly income bracket of Rs. 500,000.

Policies relating to Customs

Out of the prevailing 7,162 HS Codes in Customs, 90% of the Customs revenue is generated through 500 HS codes (6-digit). The tax structure of these 500 HS codes that generate 90% of the Customs revenue is to be restructured, benchmarking that of Malaysia, Thailand, and India (that will help local industries and create additional jobs). As a result, Customs revenue can be increased by 10%.

Government capital investments

Government capital investments, also known as the public investments programme (PIP), where the benefits span many generations of Sri Lankans, paying for them through some borrowing is fairer and more efficient. Borrowings will be made in a responsible and sustainable manner to help instil financial discipline and distribute the share of funding more equitably across current and future generations.

Government recurrent spending

Recurrent spending needs in areas such as precision poverty reduction, primary, secondary, university, technical and vocational (TVET) education is to be recognised as necessary expenditures. Currently Sri Lanka takes the easier route by funding some of these recurrent expenditures through borrowings. This is not ideal in the long-run, as such borrowings shifts the burden of paying for today’s needs onto future generations. A fairer and more robust approach is to meet recurrent spending with recurrent revenue. Hence, we must continually review our tax system to ensure its resilience.

Future policy and strategy planning for Sri Lanka

The responsibility of the future policy and strategy planning of Sri Lanka to be undertaken by the Ministry of Finance and Planning.

Any policy proposed at the budget is to have an economic analysis that the Ministry of Finance is able to defend. Implement a Management Information System (MIS) to track progress of budget promises. Asset management systems to be implemented to monitor and ensure maximum utilisation of Government assets and resources.

To increase GDP per capita from

USD 4,000 to USD 12,000

Action Plan

Allocate an additional budget of Rs. 200 billion with a 10% annual increment for primary, university and technical and vocational education.
Introduce five types of biscuits for the five days of the week which can be obtained free of charge by producing the coupon provided under the precision poverty reduction programme for school children who cannot afford breakfast. This is also available for purchase through markets.
Also, continue the provision of free text books, stationery, school uniforms and socks and shoes from the preschool to the secondary school level, targeting the poor.
Fund private sector to build, standardise and upgrade preschools.
Facilitate video-based and other necessary teacher training for pre-schools.
Develop 771 schools under provincial councils that match standards of national schools with fully-fledged facilities.
- - 2 schools each from the 276 divisional councils (552 schools).
  - 3 schools each from the 41 urban councils (123 schools).
  - 4 schools each from 24 municipal councils (96 schools).
  - Same national level popular school names and management to be followed at these 771 schools.
Select schools with sufficient land to increase student capacity by 1,500. As a result, in all 771 schools, capacity will increase to an average of 1,500 students resulting in a total increase of 1,156,500 students.
- As a result, competition for grade 1 student entrances will be reduced from current 80,000 students to 0 students.
Each district to have branches of two popular schools
- In total, 50 schools will be built, each with a capacity of 6,000 students, increasing total capacity by 300,000 students.
Encourage establishment of international schools through 0% corporate tax and 0% VAT incentives to encourage professionals to serve outstation.
- At present English-speaking professionals are reluctant to work outstation due to unavailability of English medium schools for their children.
- Encourage establishment of private universities, excluding medical colleges, through 0% corporate tax and 0% VAT incentives to achieve the goal of 50% university degree holders from total students per annum.
Introduce an online portal excluding data charges, which contains instructional videos for all school subjects.
Utilise video tutorials to teach students life and social interaction skills.
Introduce career counselling for all students from primary to higher studies.
Decrease school dropouts from 30,000 to 0 through precision poverty reduction and implementation of required social development initiatives.
Identify schools that require immediate refurbishment from the 10,194 Government schools across the Island.
Identify and closely monitor schools with low numbers of students and teachers.
- 1,486 schools with less than 50 students
- 1,560 schools with 50-100 students
- 3,133 schools with fewer than 9 teachers
Ensure all schools have access to clean water and toilet facilities.
Introduce 0% VAT and 0% corporate tax on private education. This tax benefit scheme will be guaranteed for the next 25 years to build private schools and private international schools.
Open branches of popular schools in the 6 main corridors to Colombo – Galle, Piliyandala, Homagama, Kaduwala, Nittambuwa, and Negombo. This would reduce road traffic and raise standards of schools outside Colombo.
Double dose of Mathematics from Grade 6 for poorly performing students by replacing time allocated for another subject.
From Grade 6 onwards, introduce the option of learning Science in English.
Encourage Grade 10 and 11 students to choose commerce subjects for personal financial management.
In addition to the existing English period, students will have the choice of replacing the link language period with English.
Make teacher training and student learning videos available for all subjects taught from Grade 1 to 13.
Encourage the selection of Science, Mathematics, Commerce, Biology and Engineering streams for A/L to match job market trends.
Increase student enrolment in Grade 12 and 13 from 210,000 to 300,000, while increasing capacity at schools with Science and Technology labs.
Create a portal to monitor the quality of the district level school education system.
- The portal includes general school statistics (no. of schools, no. of teachers, and no. of students, both urban and rural) and a performance dashboard (dropout rate, schools with functional toilets, schools with drinking water, etc.).
Forming a committee to ensure quality of education across Government, private, international, and other schools and pre-schools. The committee will include academics from outside the schools system to ensure its independence.
Integrate ICT into education, increase the number of computers, and ensure Internet connectivity in schools.
Make ICT-related teaching materials available through the online portal.
Video tutorials to be shared among teachers on how to teach ICT.
Use video conferencing to conduct simultaneous live classes for rural schools which suffer from a shortage of teachers.
Develop an online application system for teachers featuring their qualifications and schools with job vacancies.
Launch a teacher training certification programme.
Update student vacancies from Grade 6 to Grade 13 in every school on an online portal.
Create a website with athletic records from district, national, regional, and international level and update with the current status of each district’s student athletes.
Establish an online academy with training videos, for students to train for sports and improve their performance to reach international levels.
Develop existing school cricket grounds.
Make supplementary Math classes compulsory after O/L, either in school or via online learning.
Allow students who have passed six subjects but failed Math in their O/L, to continue with their A/L studies while attending additional Math classes to re-sit the O/L Math exam.
- Based on the pass rate for their O/L Math, students can attempt the final A/L exam.
Use school level data, attendance, performance, and behaviour, to predict dropout risk.
Allocate a period in the school timetable for student engagement programmes such as weekly arts and crafts programmes, sports, reading, and storytelling to increase student enjoyment at school.
Provide after-school tutoring programmes in key subject areas to students at risk of dropping out.
Allocate funds for students at risk of dropping out, in the form of bursaries and scholarships.
Upgrade school library facilities.
Introduce virtual libraries with free access.
Introduce project-based STREAM curriculum in primary and secondary schools.Students to learn in teams and Math, Science, Reading, and Engineering are integrated into each lesson.
Implement mandatory health lessons where students, especially young girls, are taught about menstruation and proper menstrual hygiene.
Ensure availability of emergency sanitary products and proper toilet facilities with sanitary napkin disposal systems.
Promote education of students, teachers, and parents about menstruation hygiene to reduce the stigma around menstruation.
Ensure all teachers have adequate first-aid training and include first-aid training in the school curriculum.
Prioritise establishment and upgrading of girls’ schools and provide bursaries for girls to encourage education.
Introduce mandatory environmental education on being eco-friendly, reducing waste, and recycling as part of the Geography and Science curriculum.
Allow children of Sri Lankan families who are living abroad to attend local schools and sit for local exams when they come to Sri Lanka.
Introduce curriculum resources for early learning, primary, and secondary students to promote reconciliation and strengthen knowledge and understanding of history and culture.
Provide science laboratories for schools that teach up to O/L.
Increase science stream schools by 1,000 from 1,029 to 2,029 schools.
Take part in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to evaluate the current standard of the education system.
Provide duty-free permits to owners of old school buses and vans that are over 15 years old.
Provide 2,000 mini-school buses to villages where children walk over 2 km to access the main road to reach their school.
Reduce local O/L exam results waiting time to 2 months.Introduce pre-A/L classes for all students awaiting their O/L results.Current waiting time to obtain results in Sri Lanka is 4 months. An additional 2 months is spent at home until A/L schooling starts. Students are idling for 6 months in total.
Reduce A/L exam results waiting time to 2 months.Current waiting time in Sri Lanka is 5 months.
After A/L, reduce university entrance waiting time to 6 months.Current waiting time in Sri Lanka is 17 months, including 4 months waiting for results.

Action Plan

Increase student intake capacity from 30,000 to 60,000 in Government universities.
Improve existing university rankings by further working on development of low scored areas.Benchmarking Times Higher Education World University Ranking.
- Improve teaching and learning environment.
- Increase industry income.
- Increase number of international students and staff.
- Increase number of journal paper publications and citation.
A job guarantee should be given for all degree courses. Exclude all Government university degree courses that do not have a demand in the job market.
Revision of Government university courses to match industry demand and future employability opportunities.
Increase Government medical college capacity from 1,300 to 2,000 medical students and increase intake of dental students. Prohibition of private medical universities.
Availability of lectures through an online portal by Government and Semi-Government universities.
Government to provide student loans for those who have enrolled, and bursaries for those who perform well.
Government universities to provide needed language exam facilities such as IELTS for students who want to pursue further higher education abroad.
Upgrade existing books in Government university libraries to an eLibrary platform.
- Government to purchase international e-books and provide them free of charge to all students via the eLibrary.
All labs at Government universities to be upgraded with latest equipment.
Government university labs to be opened for other research activities through an online reservation system.
All existing Government university hostels to be upgraded with proper sanitation facilities.
All Government university canteens to follow a standardized hygiene guideline.
All forms of ragging at Government universities to be banned.
- 1980 students have left the Government universities due to ragging from 2016 to July 2018.
Implement 0% Corporate tax and 0% VAT on higher education.Corporate tax and VAT rates to be guaranteed for the next 25 years to aid building private universities and private international universities, excluding medical colleges.
Government soft loans to build 5 internationally branded universities within a 30km radius from the Bandaranaike International airport.
- Encourage educational tourism with a target of 50,000 international students.
Encourage establishing of a private university or semi Government university in every district under the district branding initiative.
Introduce an education loan of Rs. 1.2 million without interest for every student who has passed Advanced Level to study at private universities with a target of 105,228 students per annum.
Create new STEM related departments and department-to department partnerships with overseas universities.
Establish incentive scheme for lecturers in addition to their salary, based on the quality of their research and number of journal papers they’ve published to increase publication rate.
Establish partnerships with foreign universities and encourage exchange of students, lecturers, research and expertise.
Increase enrolment of international students in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at private and public universities.
Translate all textbooks into braille and provide hearing and visual aids free of charge.
Provide online language learning facilities to all citizens in the country to learn Sinhala/English/Tamil in addition to their mother tongue.
Career counselling guidance to be provided at each university.
Encourage tech/science students to become entrepreneurs through advice and incentives.
Based on the degree, assist in linking students with relevant industries for internship programmes.
Mental health counselling to be provided at each university.
Establish an online portal with personal grooming and development videos for school and university students.

Action Plan

Rebrand TVET to be an attractive learning choice by producing a dedicated brand guideline.
Enhance the quality of programmes to improve graduate employability, by enabling industry professionals to lead curriculum development.
New TVET courses will be introduced after evaluating those available in India, Germany and Malaysia to match job market demand.
Build a fully equipped TVET centre in all 25 districts, with qualified lecturers for all NVQ certification levels. The target is to increase TVET certificate holders from 79,200 to 144,000 which will result in 40% of all students per annum holding TVET certifications.
Upgrade existing technical education centres in collaboration with world-class institutions.
Introduce short courses in the TVET curriculum based on 4 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, 20 hours, one day, one week and one month.
Introduce additional TVET courses in logistics stream catering to the job market demand.
Increase the number of TVET courses available for women
- Courses in office management, computer operator programming assistant, tour and travel assistant, etc.
- In addition, introduce short courses (1 to 2 weeks) in hair care, facials, nail art, and sewing garments.
Introduce “Train the Trainer” courses for TVET instructors to enhance their skills.
Make free online language courses available to all citizens.
Implement an online skill assessment portal for individuals to assess their current skill levels and to identify areas for improvement.
Implement a job bank where unemployed citizens are geo-tagged and directed to jobs matching their skills. This would also monitor new students until they have been employed.
Initiate a dedicated plan on district-wise job creation.
- Tourism related jobs Tour guide training courses, retail, homestay hotel operation, beach club operations, bartenders, waiters and receptionists, etc
- Hotel sector job creation through online hospitality courses
- Training videos for homestay hotel operators
- Nursing training courses
- Provide funds to conduct courses on handloom, traditional crafts and handicrafts, etc.
Dedicated website for TVET students with information on:
- Technical colleges available in the area
- Courses available based on location
- Career guidance
- Jobs availability in the area
- Video-based TVET course learning
- Video-based personal and soft-skill development with grooming tips
Increase intake of students in nursing colleges.
Regulate the TVET industry so that fake technical schools will be weeded out.
Carry out an advertising campaign to uplift the job dignity status and highlight the earning capacity of skilled jobs such as plumbing and electricians’ jobs.
Introduce suitable TVET courses for individual who seek foreign employment opportunities.

Social transfers

Social transfers for those living in poverty or in danger of falling into poverty

Social transfers are non-contributory, in the sense that the recipients are not required to pay for them through premiums or specific taxes. Social assistance will be provided by public and civic bodies to those living in poverty or in danger of falling into poverty. E.g. Non-contributory pensions, child benefits, school feedings, disability allowances and agricultural inputs.

All values in Rs. millions

No.	Description	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
1.	Healthcare	34,805	31,703	38,028	38,596	43,440
1.1	Pharmaceuticals	34,805	31,703	38,028	38,596	43,440
2.	Empowering the Vulnerable and NeedyEmpowering the Government Security Forces	18,314	49,189	51,612	50,862	51,319
2.1	Samurdhi	15,042	39,994	40,704	39,707	39,239
2.2	No. of Beneficiaries (Families in millions)	1.5	1.4	1.4	1.4	1.4
2.3	Assistance to Elderly (Over 70 years)	2,655	8,039	9,060	9,008	9,590
2.4	Daily Allowance for Differently Abled Students	138	220	247	195	31
2.5	Allowance for Disabled People	479	936	1,114	1,083	1,141
2.6	Financial Supports for Kidney Patients	–	–	487	869	1,318
3.	Empowering the Government Security Forces	18,290	23,433	26,772	27,808	45,901
3.1	Allowance for the Third Child of Soldiers	46	–	–	–	–
3.2	Death and Disabled Soldiers Compensation	18,244	23,433	26,772	27,808	45,901
4.	Agriculture Development	32,086	57,051	28,013	30,361	26,879
4.1	Fertilizer Subsidy	31,858	49,571	27,771	30,361	26,879
4.2	Paddy Purchasing (To Stabilise the Paddy Prices)	228	7,480	242	–	–
5.	Commercial Crop Development	1,873	11,029	2,391	2,136	2,317
5.1	Crop Subsidy
5.2	Tea	331	7,292	549	445	615
5.3	Rubber	763	2,871	713	703	542
5.4	Coconut	485	471	709	598	653
5.5	Cashew	40	35	40	54	67
5.6	Minor Crops – (Cinnamon, Cocoa, Coffee, Pepper)	254	360	380	336	440
6.	School Children and University Students	14,903	17,984	22,817	24,923	20,255
6.1	School Uniforms	3,574	2,261	2,157	2,479	1,073
6.2	Season Tickets	1,695	1,800	1,998	4,923	5,000
6.3	School and Dharma School Text Books	2,773	3,979	5,599	4,476	4,318
6.4	Grade v Scholarships, Mahapola and Bursary	852	1,390	1,914	1,344	2,136
6.5	Nutrition Programme	3,725	3,938	3,916	4,434	–
6.6	Thriposha for Children and Expectant Mothers	1,787	1,956	1,351	1,692	1,982
6.7	Poshana Malla for Expectant Mothers	279	2,422	5,746	5,408	5,490
6.8	Morning Milk for Pre-school and School Children	197	189	106	167	256
6.9	Poshana Manpetha and Lama Saviya	21	49	30	–	–
7.	Disaster Assistance	549	389	243	5,854	5,279
	Flood and Drought Relief	521	271	132	5,854	5,279
	Cooked Meals and Dry Rations	28	118	111	–	–
8.	Assistance to Religious Places	50	50	–	–	–
8.1	Water for Religious Places	50	50	–	–	–
9.	Losses of Public Enterprises	33,122	32,663	97,486	(35,777)	(131,436)
9.1	Petroleum (Ceylon Petroleum Corporation)	–	19,468	69,620	3,504	(104,037)
9.2	Kerosene	–	–	–	–
9.3	Electricity (Ceylon Electricity Board)	15,737	–	14,499	(49,231)	(29,000)
9.4	Water	–	252	2,977	738	(568)
9.5	Railway	11,034	7,714	6,773	7,595	–
9.6	Sri Lanka Transport Board	6,351	5,229	3,617	1,617	2,169
10.	Transport Facilities	5,046	5,275	5,288	5,321	5,223
10.1	SLTB Transport Facilities – Uneconomical Routes	4,770	4,975	4,999	5,000	5,004
10.2	Transportation Facilities for Armed Forces	276	300	289	321	219
11.	Common Facilities	–	–	–	–	–
11.1	Street Lighting	–	–	–	–	–
	Total (Except Losses on Public Enterprises)	125,916	196,103	175,164	185,861	200,613
	Total Social Transfers					106,049

Currently in Sri Lanka, the total value of social transfers as per the European Union (EU) definition, is Rs. 106 billion. Therefore, there is no precision poverty reduction programme but only assistance for survival, in the backdrop of an increasing number of families in poverty.

Action Plan

Allocate an additional budget of Rs. 100 billion with an annual 10% increment for social transfers and social development.
Complete eradication of poverty through the precision poverty reduction programme as the second phase of development projects under the Department of Samurdhi.
- Identify 50 indicators that would assist in poverty reduction, such as stable income, access to healthcare, nutrition, safe homes, literacy, etc.
- Geo-tagging people below the poverty line and providing precision poverty alleviation.b
- Geo-tag differently-abled citizens with blindness, deafness, impaired movement and poor mental health, and provide them with necessary technical assistance.
- Geo-tag suicide survivors and maintain their profiles with reasons for attempting suicide. Identify the top causes and areas of attempted suicides in order to reduce the suicide rate by 50%.
  - Suicide hotline callers to be answered by a suicide survivor to better manage callers’ feelings.
- Geo-tag kidney patients and identify affected areas, including those prone to Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) to construct deep-well (bore well) facilities with proper filtration. Already certain villages are equipped with the above mentioned water purification systems. e.g. Saddiyawara project by Hayleys PLC.
  - Introduce soil health cards for agricultural purposes to reduce excess usage of fertiliser by 20%.
- Geo-tag cancer patients and assign retired qualified doctors to provide necessary emotional and mental health advice, as there are 23,000 cancer patients per annum in Sri Lanka.
- Maintain a database that categorises differently abled people and hire professionals to advise, support, and monitor their progress.
- Child protection facilities:
  - Reduce incidents of wilful neglect and abandonment of infants by introducing baby hatches where mothers can leave their babies anonymously.
  - Introduce fast-track courts that specialise in child rape cases.
Senior Citizens
- Create a one-stop online portal for all senior citizens in the country. The portal will provide the following services:
  - Online training videos and courses for aged care providers
  - Information on Government-approved elders’ homes
  - Information on local volunteering opportunities
  - A dedicated job section for senior citizens to be employed with an income
Prisoner Rehabilitation and Crime Reduction (refer to “Ministry of Justice and Prisoner Reforms”).
Street children protection
- Establish dedicated day-care centres for street children and provide education opportunities through these centres.
Organising the unregulated sectors
- Brand, uplift and dignify the three-wheeler community. Utilise training videos and other means for this purpose.
- Establish a free online three-wheel booking portal and a queue management system.
- Street Food Vendors
  - Introduce soft loan schemes to support their businesses.
  - Provide vocational training and capacity building to street vendors’ through training videos to increase their income.
  - Introduce a mobile application with information on licenced street food vendors including location and directions via Google maps, to attract and inform local and foreign visitors.
    - Addresses of shops and stalls will be available in Sinhala, Tamil and English for users’ convenience if they choose to travel via taxis or other modes of public transport.
Develop disability resource centres at each district, equipped with necessary equipment for screening and therapy of differently-abled persons.
Run free online courses to support parenting and child-care.
Create an online Government portal with information to support and enrich the family unit, which includes:
- Pre marriage counselling
- Maintaining a healthy marriage
- Financial management
- Managing divorce
- Family planning
Reduce divorce cases
- Introduce a marriage preparation programme with online videos, to help lay the foundation for marriage, and equip couples with practical skills on conflict resolution and strengthening communication.

DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT

To create a thriving districts with greater quality of life, three main issues have to be addressed:

Distance from the particular district to Colombo.
Issues unique to each district.
- Culture
- Language
- Infrastructure
Distribution of Provincial Political Power?

Issue 1: Distance from the particular district to Colombo

Solution: Multi-services to be provided from each district.

Services and facilities which are restricted only to Colombo will be expanded to each district by opening up fully-fledged branches of Government offices. A “District Multi-Service Centre” to be established where the following services can be easily offered in any district:

Passport services, immigration and emigration Services
National Identity Card services and other services provided by the Department for Registration of Persons
Department for Registration of Vehicles, Driver’s Licence and Motor Traffic services
Consular services and services provided through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
All services of the Foreign Employment Bureau
All police department services including police reports and forensic reports, for which citizens currently have to travel to Colombo.
All related labour department services for the release of EPF, ETF, and other funds
Ministry of Education and Department of Examination services
Law and Justice Department services
- Reimbursement of costs incurred by citizens For any reason, should public officers delay in providing a public service or fail to complete a service within two years, that citizen will be compensated by the relevant Ministry after considering transportation costs incurred based on the distance travelled and the time taken to travel.

Issue 2: Issues unique to each district on Culture and Language

a. Cultural

E.g. Jaffna district culture: female motorcyclists and passengers wearing flowers in their hair will be exempt from the motorcycle helmet law when travelling at a speed under 30km/h. The current law identifies this scenario as dangerous driving. Ladies wearing traditional attire (saree) while on a motorbike, seated with both legs to a side will be exempt from the dangerous driving law, as long as they are travelling at a speed under 30km/h. Identify similar issues occurring in each district and provide suitable solutions to improve happiness of citizens.

b. Language

E.g. The proposed “Home Police Programme” can help overcome language barriers (e.g. Tamil used in Jaffna district) and provide doorstep police services. The programme proposes the recruitment of 4,960 female police officers, 10 per police station across the Island (496 stations) with 5 bikes provided per station. 1,700 police officers retire every year and these officers could be recruited for the “Home Police Programme” which can be completed within 3 years. As a result of the “Home Police Programme”, the language barrier for police-related services will be eliminated. Introduce a Government initiated, freely accessible portal for language translation (between Sinhala, Tamil and English). The portal to be branded and marketed with relevant training videos for the use of all citizens.

c. Lack of infrastructure

All Colombo based facilities to be made available in each district.

Action Plan

Public Education – Develop 771 schools under provincial councils that match standards of national schools with fully-fledged facilities.
- 2 schools each from the 276 divisional councils (552 schools).
- 3 schools each from the 41 urban councils (123 schools).
- 4 schools each from 24 municipal councils (96 schools).Select schools with sufficient land to increase student capacity by 1500. As a result, in all 771 schools, capacity will increase to an average of 1500 students resulting in a total increase of 1,156,500 students.
- As a result, competition for grade 1 student entrances will be reduced from current 80,000 students to 0 students.
Private Education – Encourage establishment of international schools through 0% corporate tax and 0% VAT incentives to encourage professionals to serve outstation.
- At present English-speaking professionals are reluctant to work outstation due to unavailability of English medium schools for their children.
- Encourage establishment of private universities, excluding medical colleges, through 0% corporate tax and 0% VAT incentives to achieve the goal of 50% university degree holders from total students per annum.
- Build fully equipped Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) centres with qualified lecturers for all NVQ certification levels, which will result in 40% of all students per annum holding TVET certifications.
Propose low cost, high rise apartment complexes in every district with centralised facilities such as transport, water, sewage, electricity, day-care, pre-schools, schools, universities, technical colleges and healthcare, etc.
Propose low rent, high rise office complexes in every district for new businesses bringing in new jobs, where employees who make their initial registration with EPF/ETF are allocated 70sqft each.
Build an economic centre in each district for vegetables, fruits, spices, fish, poultry and other consumables.
Construct wholesale fish markets and storage units in 14 districts with coastal areas. Fishing villages which have excess fish catchment to be provided with mobile cold storage containers.
Water supply and sanitation improvement projects to be initiated in every district.
District wise job generation
- Responsibility of private sector job generation to be held by parliament members of each district with monthly monitoring.
- All private sector ventures that set up new businesses in any district excluding Colombo, will be provided with an 80% corporate tax reduction guaranteed for the next 25 years, in agreement with the BOI.
- Geo-tag all 380,000 unemployed citizens and match their skills with available private sector jobs.
  - Upgrade their skills to suit demands in the job market.
Healthcare
- Increase operation hours for in-demand, over-crowded surgical theatres with month long waiting queues, from 8 to 12 hours.
- Commence cancer treatment at one hospital in each district in association with the Maharagama Cancer Hospital.
- Each district to have one modern and fully equipped patient testing laboratory.
- Build fully equipped health centres for heart, lung, neurology, eye and paediatric illnesses in association with the respective specialised Colombo hospital.
- Geo-tag kidney patients and identify affected areas, including those prone to Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) to construct deep-well (bore well) facilities with proper filtration. Already certain villages are equipped with the above-mentioned water purification systems.e.g. Saddiyawara project by Hayleys PLC.
  - Introduce soil health cards for agricultural purposes to reduce excess usage of fertiliser by 20%.
- Encourage the establishment of private hospitals through 0% corporate tax and 0% VAT incentives.
  - Additional insurance schemes to provide medical care for public officers.
  - Patients waiting in month-long queues for operations will be transferred to these hospitals.
Facilitate an IT park and an Industrial park in all 25 districts for local and foreign investors to fast-track their investments.
District branding
- Branding each district with signage highlighting tourist attractions, heritage sites, historical sites, botanical gardens and parks, etc.

Action Plan

Police Department

Smart Security

Implement unique digital biometric identification for people under investigation by the police.
Set up CCTV cameras in all major public and private establishments with facial recognition technology.
Share criminal databases with world security agencies. Also utilise facial recognition at airports to be alerted regarding any potential terrorists trying to enter the Country.
Explore real-time facial recognition through smart glasses for the police.
Use data science to monitor social media activities and predict potential criminal acts.

All police services will be provided in each district e.g. At present, police clearance certificate to seek employment abroad is issued only in Colombo.
Introduce “Home Police” to overcome language barriers and provide doorstep police services. 4,960 female police officers are recruited 10 per police station islandwide (496 stations) and 5 bikes will be provided per station.1700 police officers retire every year and these officers could be recruited for the “Home Police Programme” which will be completed within 3 years.Their tasks include policing domestic issues: child abuse, domestic violence, and school safety. The training will be conducted online and onsite.
Accelerate investigations through real time information exchange. This will happen through electronic witness statement and electronic suspect image, mobile digital case file with real-time sharing and digital evidence capture, mobile ID verification and multi system search in custody, and crowd sourced investigation through social media.
Use biometric technology such as Pronto to record offenders’ details at the point of arrest. This information is then stored in an online database that all police personnel can access.
Streamline and digitalise processes such as speeding tickets to increase efficiency.
Explore proactive policing – Utilise demand forecasting technology to reach potential crime scenes pre-emptively. Use predictive policing analytics to model future risks, and evidence based intelligence analytics to drive deployment decisions.
Use hand held electronic or mobile payment systems to introduce spot fines.
Each district should have dedicated drug testing labs and DNA testing labs to assist in finding evidence for police investigations.
Introduce the ePolice application, which is an integrated platform to address the needs of all law enforcement units such as automated biometric identification systems, forensic analysis, and case-management systems.
Introduce online training videos for police officers.
Establish an official YouTube channel to spread awareness on substance abuse and mental health services.
Introduce a free app that empowers health care practitioners to provide effective, evidence-based care for opioid use disorders when providing medication-assisted treatment (MAT).
Publish an online magazine for parents addressing teenage drug abuse and effects of alcohol and rehabilitation. Articles could cover the following areas:
- Addiction and how to overpower this chronic illness
- Hidden signs of drug addiction
- Going to rehab and how each day leads to personal improvement
- Why Fentanyl is threatening Sri Lanka
- Why ignoring mental health and addiction can be a very costly mistake
- Teens and cannabis

Prison Rehabilitation

Disciplined Citizens

Literacy Level	Number of Arrests	Percentage	Cumulative Percentage
No Schooling	6,764	6.80%
Grade 1-5	20,042	20.20%	27%
Passed Grade 5	25,613	25.90%	52.90%
Passed Grade 8	31,917	32.20%	85.10%
Passed O/L	11,701	11.80%	96.90%
Passed A/L	2,835	2.90%	99.80%
Graduate & Other	164 (82 respectively)	0.20%	100%

Source: 2017 Prison Statistics

Sri Lanka had 99,036 unconvicted prisoners in 2017, out of which 6.8% had no schooling, 52.9% had studied only up to grade 5, and 85.1% had studied only up to grade 8. However, the total percentage of unconvicted prisoners who passed progressed to A/Ls and beyond, was only 3.1%. Therefore, if every child is educated at least up to A/Ls, 50% of prisons can be shut down.

Use biometric technology such as Pronto to record offenders’ details at the point of arrest. This information is then stored in an online database that all police personnel can access. Uses and benefits include police being able to identify offenders in real time using their thumbprint, the ability to instantly access the national police database while in the field, and streamline and digitalise processes such as speeding tickets, to increase efficiency.
Introduce a debt relief programme to prisons, where prisoners can engage in community service to obtain relief from fines and court fees.
Reduction of prison sentence by four days for every pre-approved book on science, literature, religion and history, that are read and reviewed.

Ministry of Justice

Reduce corruption by carrying out the following;
- Each ministry should have a member from the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption.
- Each ministry should have a member from the Auditor General’s Department.
- Introduce an e-procurement system for all procurement processes.
- Introduce new legislation on governing political funding and discourage lobbying.
- Introduce a proper asset declaration system for members of parliament.
- To introduce standard clauses in project procurements, undertakings in order to protect Government interest in all projects/contracts involving Government, statutory bodies, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
- In the case of any breach of contract(s), the Government can at any given time, terminate or/and file a civil suit against the party who breaches the contract.
Improve infrastructure of court houses, ensure they have basic amenities, seating, and lighting.
Provide or replace computers in courtrooms, sound equipment, multimedia equipment, essential software and a fast internet connection.
Have an adequate number of trained non-judicial staff to ensure efficient running of the court house.
Establish an institute to train personnel to provide court services such as translation, transcription, stenography, and computer systems management.
Introduce a digital court information system.
Introduce fast-track courts that specialise in rape cases.Courts will hear rape trials daily and investigations of rape cases must be completed within 4 months, and the trial must be completed within a year.This will be accomplished by;
- Having manpower dedicated to investigate cases of rape.
- Each district will have a dedicated forensic lab to process evidence.
- Special forensic kits for cases of rape will be provided to all hospitals and police station.
Create an online database that allows;
- The public to read every draft law submitted. It should be possible to see who submitted the legislation, its current status, and changes made to it during the parliament process
- Citizens to follow council sessions live
- Provide city legislation and other documents online
This would reduce corruption and encourage citizens to take an interest in legislative affairs.
Introduce drug courts with online video conferencing facilities connected to police stations where people who have been arrested while using drugs are sent to rehabilitation directly instead of being sent to prison.Current laws to be maintained for those arrested for the possession or sale of drugs.After serving the rest of their detention in the community; convicts stay at home with curfew and electronic monitoring, working/studying during the day and staying at supervision centres at night, or at a halfway house with a structured programme.

Goals: Drive agricultural transformation that is inclusive of the following:

Increase agricultural productivity for farmers
Increase farmers’ household income
Increase equitable consumption of a safe, affordable and nutritious year round
Increase women’s empowerment in agriculture

Action Plan

Distribute soil health cards and soil-test based fertiliser recommendations.Currently, 35,000 containers of fertiliser are imported. With the introduction of soil health cards and fertiliser recommendations, 20% (7,000 containers) of imports can be reduced.
Carry out preliminary agricultural land preparation for farmers by local authorities, using required machinery.
Improve irrigation infrastructure to support cultivation:
- Rehabilitation and capacity improvement of 2,400 tanks
- Identify and develop the tank cascade system
- Develop and rehabilitate irrigation wells
Ensuring timely availability of quality seeds at affordable rates.
Provision of a subsidy for liquid fertiliser and organic farming.
The current fertiliser subsidy to be paid in cash during the drought season to cover farmers’ living expenses.
Develop a dedicated e-commerce portal to promote and increase profitability of organic farming, thereby increasing the availability of organic produce for consumers.
Implement SMART farming:
1. Farmer crop profiling and monitoring.
2. 7-day weather forecast.
3. Climate-based advisory and climate-smart irrigated agriculture programme.
4. Fertiliser application recommendation.
5. Crop stage monitoring.
6. Geo-tagging and mapping for plots.
7. Area surveys to guarantee minimum price of crops for farmers.
8. Harvest predictions.
9. Pest disease and advisory (timely crop advisory).
10. End-to-end traceability from nursery to trade.
11. Mobile crop advisory app for farmers.
12. Complete mapping of crops in Sri Lanka through satellite imagery to understand the extent of cultivation and estimate production.
13. Algorithm-based matchmaking between suppliers and buyers.
14. Reduce agriculture wastage by predicting crop yields across the country and providing optimal storage solutions.
For all imported fresh produce that is locally grown, impose 50% of the current import duty at the beginning of the planting season and the remainder at a later stage.
Build an economic centre in every district.
Share technical videos on how to cultivate crops on YouTube in Sinhalese and Tamil.
Provide day-to-day information to farmers on crop production, input supply, and marketing, via the Internet.
Utilise domestic marketing channels and carry out advertising campaigns to promote the consumption of agricultural produce, to strengthen wholesale markets, develop farmers and agricultural cooperative markets and promote contract farming.
Establish a national warehousing grid to ensure necessary logistical linkages for warehousing of agricultural produce to match district-wise requirements.
Create a mobile app-based system to promote the availability of agro-implements on rental or custom-hiring basis.
Enable rent of tractors for poor farmers via a mobile app.
Assist the private sector to open ten large-scale hybrid isolated seed gardens by providing:
1. Hybrid (DXT) coconut seeds with a yield of 120 coconuts per tree, owned by Government farms
2. Training for artificial pollination

Agriculture exports

Provide free landing and parking facilities for all cargo airlines at BIA Katunayake, Pallali, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Koggala, Mattala, and Digana in Kandy, in order to encourage agricultural exports.
Provide facilities for cargo airlines to fly internationally from Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Koggala, and Digana (Kandy).
Reduce all agricultural imports and implement a predictable export and import policy.
Encourage Public Private Partnerships to reach a USD 300 million target for durian and mango exports, providing plants and technology to the private sector.Allow import of durian plants from Thailand to open nurseries and sell plants.
Provide the private sector with young sweet-coconut seeds imported from Thailand, enabling them to open isolated seed gardens and sell plants.

Action Plan

Improve the ranking of Sri Lanka in international environmental indices.
Create videos and make them available on YouTube in all 3 languages to encourage citizens to be more conscious of the environment.
Create jobs through planting of 200 million trees within 5 years: Employ people in each district to plant 100 million trees for re-forestation and 100 million trees for commercial use.
Educate children on environmental sensitivity and protection via Care for Earth awareness videos, and recycling factbooks.
Build breeding centres for endangered species in collaboration with zoos.
Improve 26 wildlife parks (of a total extent of 156,000 acres) and increase the population of local wildlife:
- Build additional water resources within wildlife parks.
- Plant trees in deserted areas to preserve the natural habitat.
- Install solar water pumps to provide drinking water for animals during droughts.
- Grow nutritious grass varieties.
- Introduce wildlife into 200 acres of land close to park exits and ensure availability of adequate resources for their survival.
Identify and breed animals that are not harmful to crops.
Engineers of the Sri Lankan Navy to be appointed as river mouth management officials to mitigate floods.
Public to geo-tag and send photos of garbage piled-up areas and mosquito breeding places. The Sri Lankan Army to initiate the cleaning campaign and clean the country within a year.
Clean canals in Colombo and identify canals suitable for waterfront attractions, canal cruises, etc.
Provide a 10% corporate tax incentive for all buildings with GBI or LEED certification to minimise carbon footprint.
Conduct vulnerability assessment and prepare an adaptation plan related to climate change.
Streamline the public transport system with convenient and reliable public transport methods to reduce traffic congestion. (Colombo Happy Ride project)
Introduce energy efficient street lighting systems.
Construct power stations in every district, which utilise municipal solid waste. Construction to be carried out through public-private partnerships. Government to pay tipping fees for these plants.

Coastal environment protection

Coastal Management SystemIdentify high erosion areas of coastlines and best methods to preserve them. Obtain detailed topographical maps of the area to determine what structures to construct.
- 90% of corals are dead in Sri Lanka, therefore, establish a “Coral Reef Task Force” to preserve and protect the coral reef ecosystems in Hikkaduwa, Kalpitiya, Silavathura, Pigeon Island in Trincomalee, Kayankerni Marine Sanctuary in Batticaloa, and Passikudah.
Introduce and grow land-based coral.

Biodiversity

Increase public awareness on the importance of biodiversity through domestic focused eco–tourism and related activities:
- Formulate and implement the national biodiversity Communications, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) action plan.
- Raise awareness through citizen science by creating opportunities for members of the public to be involved in biodiversity research. Enhance the website and social media presence of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and other biodiversity-related agencies.
Increase number of youth participating in nature-based activities:
- Strengthen environmental training for teachers, administrators, and managers across all levels of public education, from pre-school to higher learning institutions.
- Support and strengthen co-curricular school activities, including nature clubs, green camps, and recreational sports, with a focus on outdoor learning in nature.
- Develop or adopt standardised modules for nature camps to enable such camps to be replicated throughout the country.
- Enable youth groups to carry out biodiversity conservation projects and internships with suitable organisations.

Disaster Management

Conduct continuous river and river-mouth management, seasonal dredging, and filling during the monsoon seasons.
Conduct National Disaster Risk Profile study for the entire country and identify potential disasters, disaster-prone areas, and degree of severity.
Maintain a database of manmade and natural landslide-prone areas, and continuously monitor them to understand which regions are at a higher risk.
Conduct a drought risk assessment to understand existing and potential risks and hazards.

Wildlife parks

Solutions for Human-Elephant conflict.Currently, electric fencing is installed at lands managed by the Department of Wildlife Conservation. However, elephants inhabit lands of both the Departments of Wildlife Conservation and Forest Conservation. Fencing should be built around villages prone to human-elephant conflicts (this method has proved successful in over 50 villages). Bio fencing and virtual fencing, operating through sensors that warn the presence of intruding elephants are other ways to prevent human – elephant conflict. There have been several instances where elephants have got electrocuted because of electric fencing.Air Force to geo-tag existing electric fences via Google Maps to identify areas with elephants on both sides of the electric fence.
Improve channels, tanks, and drinking facilities for animals by obtaining contour plans of the 26 wildlife parks with a total extent of 573,376.078 Ha to eliminate wild animal deaths from drought.
Ensure availability of rehabilitation centres for injured animals in all 26 wildlife parks.
Implement surveillance at wildlife parks to catch trespassing hunters and poachers.
Conduct a satisfaction survey for rangers to identify their needs.
Allocate designated routes for off-road experiences.
Standardise specific types of vehicles for use in wildlife safari parks.
Provide financial assistance for tour guides to buy safari vehicles.
Brand safari guides and train them through video tutorials.
Promote safari packages to visitors and enable online purchasing of tickets.
Establish signature experiences unique to each park and make these central to their marketing.
Improve signage and visibility for wildlife parks, on motorways and entry signs.
Improve visitor centres with integrated open cafes and dedicated retail spaces.
Create a curriculum-based education package together with the Ministry of Education for school children.

50 million patients visit OPDs annually
15,000 daily admissions
5 million patients admitted annually for treatments
1,085 hospitals in the Country
83,275 total hospital bed count

Action Plan

Increase the average life expectancy by an additional 3 years through improvements in healthcare facilities.
Identify the top 10 reasons for deaths in Sri Lanka and take necessary preventative measures.
- The top 10 causes of death are:
  - Coronary heart disease
  - Stroke
  - Diabetes
  - Wheezing or asthma
  - Alzheimer’s disease
  - Lung illnesses
  - Chronic lung diseases
  - Suicide
  - Chronic kidney disease
  - Cirrhosis
Develop fully-fledged hospitals in the 7 main corridors to Colombo (Moratuwa, Piliyandala, Kottawa, Battaramulla, Kadawatha, Ragama, and Negombo).
- Public outskirts of Colombo will get access to high quality healthcare.
- This will reduce the number of people coming into Colombo City for healthcare.
Commence cancer treatments at a hospital in each district in association with the Maharagama Cancer Hospital.
Each district to have a modern and fully equipped patient testing laboratory.
Build fully equipped health centres for heart, lung, neurology, eye and paediatric illnesses in association with the respective specialised Colombo hospitals.
Introduce a new overtime payment scheme for doctors and medical staff to reduce the waiting time of patients for surgeries.
- Currently, patients are listed on the waiting list for 1 week to 10 months.
- With the new payment scheme, theatres which are used for 8 hours of work can be extended to 12 hours, including Saturdays and Sundays.
Increase the medical student intake from 1,300 to 2,000 at Government universities to address the shortage of qualified doctors in the Country.
- Increase other relevant healthcare staff.
Encourage the establishment of private hospitals through 0% corporate tax and 0% VAT incentives.
- Additional insurance schemes will be provided to Government servants to receive medical care.
- Patients waiting in month-long queues for operations will be transferred to these hospitals.
Introduce a “Digital Health Hub” (DHH) which will be available both online and via a mobile app.
- DHH can be accessed with the Digital National Identity Card. Services of the DHH are:
  - Access to patient’s health data history for the past 10 years.
  - View time slots available at all hospitals/clinics for scans, doctors’ appointments, etc.
  - Alerts on scheduled appointments.
Develop an online portal to monitor stock availability of medicines in each hospital.
- This can track medicine stocks available in other hospitals in a stock out situation.
- Hospitals can order stocks in advance to avoid stock out situations by checking current stock counts digitally.
The aforementioned overtime payment scheme can be applied to all medical staff in order to make use of underutilised theatres, test and scan rooms to reduce the waiting time for patients.
Digitalise hospital bed distribution to all hospital wards to maximise the utilisation of hospital beds.
Digitalise all test lab reports of patients in collaboration with the blood bank and use these reports to forecast the patterns of the patient’s medical conditions.
- Patients can take necessary preventive steps to control any medical condition.
Develop and maintain toilets according to the following standards:
- 1 toilet for every 20 inpatient users
- At least 4 toilets per outpatient setting
- Separate toilets for medical and general staff
Introduce and maintain an affordable pricing policy for essential drugs and equipment.
Maintain an agreed quality standard on medicines when released to markets.
- Introduce labels with the content of medicine and details on any side effects.
Provide easy access to needed medical facilities for families who cannot have children due to medical reasons.
Geo-tag kidney patients and identify affected areas, including those prone to Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) to construct deep-well (bore well) facilities with proper filtration. Already certain villages are equipped with the above-mentioned water purification systems.e.g. Saddiyawara project by Hayleys PLC.
- Introduce soil health cards for agricultural purposes to reduce excess usage of fertiliser by 20%.
Introduce telemedicine services to provide information and diagnosis by healthcare professionals, especially for rural areas through an online call or through preloaded data.
Develop videos to promote physical activity among adults and children to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases.
Implement proper waste disposal methods at all hospitals.
Increase the intake of students in Nursing Colleges.
- Sponsor foreign scholarships for senior level nurses to upgrade their skills.
To attract medical staff to rural postings:
- Build international schools for their children.
- Fully renovate rural hospitals with necessary healthcare facilities.
- Private hospitals for private practice.
- Doctor’s quarters to be facilitated with all essential items.
An accident-free house planning guide to be introduced for senior citizens above 65 years of age.
Develop Ayurveda treatment segment.
- Provide training and access to new methods used in Ayurveda for practitioners.
- Plantation of more herb farms to strengthen Ayurveda medicine production.
- Introduce income and pension schemes for Ayurveda practitioners similar to Western medicine doctors.
- Give assistance to top Ayurveda practitioners in the country to establish treatment centres at tourist hubs.
Introduce a “Low Risk Drinking Guideline” to reduce health risks associated with drinking.
Introduce a guideline on recommended sleeping habits for all age levels to promote a healthy lifestyle among citizens.
To address the issue of absenteeism of girls due to menstruation, following steps to be taken:
- Conduct awareness programmes at schools, communities and families covering areas such as:
  - The process of menstruation
  - The importance of washing menstrual cloth
  - Types of absorbents that can be used during menstruation
  - Build the confidence of adolescent girls and educate them to accept the changes which happen during mensturation
  - Prepare adolescent girls and their families on what to expect during menstruation and how to take care of their hygiene during that period
- Develop online awareness videos on Menstrual Hygiene.
- Establish disposal mechanisms.
- Develop water, sanitation and hygiene-related facilities supporting Menstrual Hygiene management (one toilet for every 40 girls, with water and soap).
- Promote production of Sanitary Napkins at village levels.
- Counsel and support adolescent girls on how to improve their diets.
- Conduct training programmes for social development officers and teachers.
Objectives of this training programme are:
- To understand the importance of Menstrual Hygiene management.
- To develop skills and capacities to address Menstrual Hygiene management in schools and at the community level.
Raise awareness on mental health issues and establish centres with the necessary professional staff and equipment for counselling and treatments.
Accelerate reforms in the paramedical education sector to increase the availability of nurses, pharmacists, and other paramedical personnel.
Establish active health labs around the Country for health and wellness, especially of sportspersons, by giving them a free reading of their health parameters.
Introduce an application with behavioural analytics technology to identify individuals with depression and anxiety.
Launch a website and an app with essential information for new and expecting mothers with details about what to expect, when to get vaccinations, when to see the doctor, and book appointments with doctors.
Develop online video-based training programmes to teach basic first aid techniques for the public in emergency situations.
Conduct good health habit workshops at schools, workplaces, hospitals, and religious institutions.
Advocacy through the media and entertainment industry by allocating free air time and print space for health promotion, particularly for non-communicable disease risk factors in Sinhalese, Tamil, and English.

Target

200,000 new jobs generated per annum by 2025
USD 7 billion local investments per annum by 2025
USD 7 billion Foreign Direct Investments per annum by 2025
Sri Lanka’s rank in Ease of Doing Business Index to be improved from 100 to 50 by 2022
Sri Lanka’s rank in Global Competitiveness Index to be improved from 85 to 45 by 2022

Action Plan

Streamline the investment approval process by reducing the number of pages in the Investment Application from 14 to 1, and approval to be given within 24 hours.Rules and regulations of the investment approval process will be simplified to overcome red tape.
Showcase the competitive advantage of investing in Sri Lanka with 25-year guaranteed tax benefits in agreement with the BOI.0% corporate tax, 0% VAT, and 0% dividend tax for 25 years for the following sectors:
- Education
- Information service activities(Any type of BPO, KPO, provision of infrastructure for hosting, data processing services and related activities, web portals, news syndicate and news agency activities furnishing news, pictures and features to the media, computer based telephone information services, information search services on a contract or fee basis and news clipping services, press clipping services and other digital services)
- Human health activities
- Air transport
- Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailer
- Waste collection, treatment and disposal activities; materials recovery
- Water collection, treatment and supply
- Sewerage
- Manufacture of other transport equipment
- Fishing and aquaculture
- Remediation activities and other waste management services
12% employee PAYE tax for income levels over Rs. 500,000.
Facilitate an IT park and an industrial park in all 25 districts for local and foreign investors to fast-track their investments.
Introduce Sri Lanka Nation Branding Strategy. (Nation Branding Hexagon – refer page 101)
Create fully-fledged product and investment offerings and showcase a business-friendly environment.
District-wise job generation to be monitored monthly and the Cabinet to take appropriate action where jobs are lacking.
Reduce the current rate of corporate tax to 12% for new ventures and provide a 25-year guarantee for the reduced rate for all sectors in the Western Province. Other provinces to be granted a discount of 80%, thereby charging an effective rate of 2.4% (which will help in generating jobs in rural districts).
Foster a flexible and globally employable workforce:
- Identify top 50 jobs in demand globally.
- Improve productivity and skill development at vocational training institutes, benchmarking Singapore, Thailand, Australia, and Malaysia.
- Develop career institutes and training centres to match the global workforce demand.

Action Plan

38 embassies in Non-Commonwealth countries.
13 High Commissions in Commonwealth countries.
13 Consulate Generals.
2 permanent missions to the United Nations.

Evaluate all Sri Lankan embassies and high commissions on the basis of:
- Diplomatic importance, impact, and geopolitical support.
- Bilateral trade, economic, cultural and social benefits.
- Consular services for expatriates, number of foreign tourists, revenue generated by the missions and maintenance cost of each mission.
- Enhance and improve services of existing missions.
- Establish new missions and shut down unproductive missions.
Introduce mandatory Ambassador Executive Training Program (AETP) for aspiring diplomats.
- Political appointment-based officials to follow AETP.
- Courses included in the programme:
  - Diplomatic protocol and etiquette
  - United Nations system
  - Emotional intelligence
  - Future foresight
  - Public speaking and media handling affairs
  - Consular and humanitarian diplomacy
  - Leadership
- Introduce a one-year diploma course at Colombo University which will be mandatory for all aspiring diplomats.
Introduce Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Ambassadors. Main KPIs include:
- Value of Foreign Direct Investments brought to Sri Lanka
- Number of foreign companies brought to Sri Lanka
- Number of tourists and visitors brought to Sri Lanka
- Number of export opportunities created for Sri Lanka
- Media value generated in the country of operation to increase awareness of Sri Lanka’s nation brand
Mandatory language courses to be followed. Fluency is expected in the following languages:
- Chinese
- Hindi
- Spanish
- Arabic
- French
- Russian
Organise “Know Sri Lanka Programme”
- An engagement programme for Diasporic youth (between the ages of 18 to 30) of Sri Lankan origin, that would introduce them to Sri Lanka and promote awareness about different facets of Sri Lankan life, cultural heritage, and the arts.
- Introduce an online platform for migrant workers to regulate overseas employment, through which workers can find authorised recruiting agents, employers, and project exporters. The platform will also provide all necessary documents and guidance for migrant workers.
To attract foreign investors:
- Introduce a quarterly magazine with information on the economy, opportunities in different sectors and initiatives by the Government to improve ranking in the Ease of Doing Business Index from 100 to 50; and in the Global Competitiveness Index from 85 to 45, by 2022.
- Design a yearly handbook with information on the economy; taxes, incentives, and regulations; sector information; Information Technology; energy and power, etc.
Introduce a “Neighbourhood First” policy to accelerate regional coordination and economic cooperation with countries in the neighbourhood to improve multilateral cooperation.
Establish a unit consisting of Foreign Policy experts to focus on foreign policy research, geopolitical issues, and National capacity building.
Strengthen connections with foreign countries through foreign economic forums such as ASEAN.
Maintain a strong connection especially between front-line law-enforcement and security agencies in countries from ASEAN, Commonwealth, etc. in order to strengthen international counterterrorism efforts.
Initiate a “Youth Ambassador Programme” for Sri Lankan university students studying abroad:
- - To promote Sri Lankan culture and tourism.
  - To provide accurate news, especially in a tense situation.
  - To foster relationships among youth from different countries.
Relevant embassies to train selected students using video material and workshops.
Initiate programmes with decision makers, think tanks, academia, media, and civil society organisations.
- Organise diplomatic leadership incubators
- Organise policy test labs
- Conduct simulation rooms
Initiate a promotional programme, “Sri Lanka, My Second Home”, where foreigners with investments of USD 120,000 and monthly income of USD 2,400 would receive the following the benefits:
- Tax incentives for vehicle purchases
- The ability to purchase houses
- Increased access for families and children below 21 years of age
- A social visit pass
Promote Sri Lanka’s political, economic, and strategic interests by:
- Enhancing bilateral relations
- Promoting exchange visits
- Preparing status report on various issues raised at meetings/discussions
- Discussing issues during bilateral visits and meetings on the sidelines of international meetings
- Raising issues during visits undertaken by undersecretaries
- Enhancing relations with other countries through outreach programmes
Cultivate Sri Lanka’s international profile in the multilateral system by enhancing cooperation with United Nations (UN) agencies, and other regional and international bodies.

Action Plan

The economic competitiveness of a country depends on the productivity of its sustainable ICT sector. Sri Lanka is currently in the stage of shifting from an emerging market to a developed market, and “Smart Solutions” are seen as the key towards growth. This developed market-goal is to be reached by 2030, and external resources are essential to transform developed Sri Lanka into a Smart Sri Lanka in a further 3 years. The focus areas are:

Smart Security
Smart Education
Smart Health
Smart Agriculture
Smart Transport
Smart Tourism
Smart Sports
Smart Utilities
Smart Finance
Smart Buildings and Infrastructure

VISION

To make Sri Lanka among the Top 10 happiest countries in the world.

MISSION

Developing smart services for people’s happiness.

TECHNOLOGY ENABLER

AI (Artificial Intelligence) – driven unified ICT platform for all public services.

Smart Security
- Implement unique digital biometric identification for people under investigation by the police.
- Set up CCTV cameras in all major public and private establishments with facial recognition technology.
- Share criminal databases with world security agencies. Also utilise facial recognition at airports to be alerted regarding any potential terrorists trying to enter the Country.
- Explore real-time facial recognition through smart glasses for the police
- Use data science to monitor social media activities and predict potential criminal acts.
Smart Education
- Online video-based classes for all school subjects in Sinhalese, Tamil, and English languages for teaching and e-learning.
- All new classrooms to be developed as Smart Classrooms to provide wider access to students.
- Create a unified online platform for all jobs available and match with peoples’ skills, preferences, and locations.
Smart Health
- Introduce a “Digital Health Hub” (DHH) which will be available both online and via a mobile app. DHH can be accessed with the Digital National Identity Card.Services of the DHH include:
  - Access to patient’s health data history for the past 10 years.
  - View time slots available at all hospitals and clinics for scans, doctors’ appointments, etc.
  - Alerts on scheduled appointments
- Provide tele-diagnosis services for patients to overcome problems related to reach, affordability, waiting time, and availability of space at hospitals.
- Analytics over cancer patient records to diagnose the stage and suggest treatment courses.
- Geo-tag patients through the Dengue App to predict the direction and rate of increase of Dengue to proactively tackle the spread.
Smart Agriculture
- Farmer crop profiling and monitoring
- 7-day weather forecast
- Climate-based advisory and climate-smart irrigated agriculture programme
- Fertiliser application recommendation
- Crop stage monitoring
- Geo-tagging and mapping for plots
- Area surveys to guarantee minimum price of crops for farmers
- Harvest predictions
- Pest disease and advisory (timely crop advisory)
- End-to-end traceability from nursery to trade
- Mobile crop advisory app for farmers
- Complete mapping of crops in Sri Lanka through satellite imagery to understand the extent of cultivation and estimate production
- Algorithm-based matchmaking between suppliers and buyers
- Reduce agriculture wastage by predicting crop yields across the country and providing optimal storage solutions
Smart Transport
- Introduce a mobile app for public transport, through which the general public can access real-time locations of buses and trains.
- Implement a Smart Time and Queue Management system for three-wheelers and taxies to minimise waiting time for passengers.
- Provide a platform to provide real-time information on available parking spots and collect parking charges with a 10% discount if paid online.
- Increase landing capacity at airports using ultra high definition cameras and an integrated data platform that would minimise idle time and increase runway capacity.
- Introduce a platform to file “Road Watch and Traffic Complaints”.Complaints can be filed against all vehicles, including Government vehicles, for breaking road rules and undisciplined parking.
- Introduce a smart traffic system to automate traffic lights according to the flow of traffic.
- Locations with the highest record of face-to-face accidents will be geo-tagged, and engineering solutions coupled with advisory signage and notifications will be provided.
- Introduce handheld spot fine systems.
- Introduce discreet traffic light and road cameras to monitor adherence to road rules.
- Integrate all e-transport applications into an all-in-one mobile app.
- Introduce an electronic payment system for public transport fare collection, with special day or week passes for tourists.
- Create and upload awareness videos on road rules.
Smart Tourism
- Develop analytics platform to get visibility of daily hotel occupancy and future bookings across the country to manage associated services for tourists.
- Digitalise all physical assets (like sites, monuments, temples, etc.), provide important information about these to tourists under one platform.
- Introduce augmented reality for tourism to obtain information about tourist sights.
- Develop a platform to create itinerary for tourists based on their dates, preferences, places they want to visit, and connect with service providers to provide a seamless experience.
Smart Sports
- Develop a platform for digitalising all sports records and manage each player directly from school level.
- Use AI to choose winning combinations of players to represent the sport at National and International level.
- Use smart wearables with high calibre players to track their vital statistics during practice sessions and matches to predict future performance.
- Use AI to predict event attendance rates and optimise ticket pricing and sales to improve monetisation of sports.
- Provide online video-based training and courses for coaches.
Smart Utilities
- Digitalise records of all utility services provided to citizens and link them under one platform with the Digital National Identity Card, which includes the following services:
  - E-identity
  - Security and safety
  - E-governance
  - Interoperability services (E-Land register, etc.)
  - Mobility services (intelligent transportation system, mobile parking, border queue management, etc.)
  - Healthcare
  - E-Education
  - Business and Finance (E-Tax, E-Business register, etc.)
- Preventive maintenance by forecasting the breakdown of machinery involved in production of utilities using IoT sensors.
- Allow online payments for all utilities and connecting customers with any individual service provider under one platform.
Smart Finance
- Monitor tax payments and transactions using AI and automation of alerts in case of any inconsistencies.
- Digitalisation of all Government banking processes with paperless banking, opening FDs online, etc.
- Remove hurdles for payment gateways, minimise transaction costs for payments and popularise mobile wallets.
- Enable mobile and online payment for all public services, income tax filing, etc.
Smart Buildings and Infrastructure
- Initiate a programme to install fiber optic cable to bring high speed broadband connectivity in rural areas to create local employment opportunities and drive socio-economic growth in the area. This will enable Government services such as Tele-medicine, Tele-Education, e-Health, e-Entertainment, etc.
- Use Blockchain to digitalise all property records and each transaction to ascertain property rights.
- Develop Smart IT parks in free trade zones with best in-class architecture to attract FDIs and best companies focused on ICT start-ups and outsourcing.
- Sewage and drainage system management in real-time using ICT.
- Targets for the Private sector
  - 4-fold increase in ICT revenue from USD 1.2 billion to USD 5 billion by 2025.
  - 5-fold increase in ICT jobs from 80,000 employees to 400,000 employees by 2025.
  - Provide 30.2 million Sq.ft. in office buildings and IT Parks to accommodate the additional 320,000 employees.
  - 0% corporate tax guaranteed for the next 25 years for office buildings and IT Parks through the BOI.
  - Target for 2030 will be USD 10 billion with a total of 800,000 employees.
Enabling steps
- Eliminate all taxes related to Internet data.
- Introduce a limited screen time child-friendly Internet package with parental controls for children of ages 3 years and above to go online and:
  - Improve hand-eye coordination
  - Have access to a wealth of information
  - Enhance language skills
  - Enhance problem solving
  - Access high quality content
- Improve the English language, Mathematics, and ICT beginning from primary education.
- Introduce an online portal excluding data charges, which contains instructional videos for all school subjects.
- IT and AI courses to be introduced from Grade 9.
- Vocational technical institutes to start offering all IT and AI courses with diplomas and certifications (in the future, 40% of students will go into vocational training).
- All universities to start offering IT and AI bachelor degrees, masters programmes, and PhDs (in the future, 50% of students will go into universities).
  - All Government and private universities to develop courses in high demand in collaboration with top ranked universities in the world.
  - Adaptation and deployment of open source simulation packages like ORCAD, Silab, MATLAB, AUTOCAD, etc.
- Improve the ranking of Sri Lanka in the Ease of Doing Business index from 100th position to 50th.
- Improve the ranking of Sri Lanka in the Global Competitiveness index from 85th position to 45th.
- Information service activities and infrastructure to have 0% corporate tax, 0% VAT, and 0% dividend tax guaranteed for 25 years.(IT parks, any type of BPO, KPO, provision of infrastructure for hosting, data processing services and related activities, web portals, news syndicate and news agency activities furnishing news, pictures and features to the media, computer-based telephone information services, information search services on a contract or fee basis and news clipping services, press clipping services, and other digital services)
- Imports of computers and other hardware units to have 0% custom duties and 0% PAL for the next 10 years.
- Invite the top 100 multi-national information technology companies such as IBM, Intel, and Microsoft to setup their global delivery centres in Sri Lanka.
- Non-resident headquarters cooperation establishments to have 0% corporate tax, 0% VAT, and 0% dividend tax for the next 25 years.
- Establish global delivery centres of Sri Lankan companies across the world.
- Provision of subsidised cloud infrastructure to various start-ups to help them during the early stages of the company.
- Matching of jobs with available skillset – Introduce a unified platform for all jobs available and match with skilled people, their location, and preferences.

Action Plan

Smart Transport

Introduce a mobile app for public transport, through which the general public can access real-time locations of buses and trains.
Implement a Smart Time and Queue Management system for three-wheelers and taxies to minimise waiting time for passengers.
Provide a platform to provide real-time information on available parking slots and collect parking charges with a 10% discount if paid online.
Increase landing capacity at airports using ultra high definition cameras and an integrated data platform that would minimise idle time and increaserunway capacity.
Introduce a platform to file “Road Watch and Traffic Complaints”. Complaints can be filed against all vehicles, including Government vehicles, for breaking road rules and undisciplined parking.
Introduce a smart traffic system to automate traffic lights according to the flow of traffic.
Locations with the highest record of face-to-face accidents will be geo-tagged, and engineering solutions coupled with advisory signage and notifications will be provided.
Introduce handheld spot fine systems.
Introduce discreet traffic light and road cameras to monitor adherence to road rules.
Integrate all e-transport applications into an all-in-one mobile app.
Introduce an electronic payment system for public transport fare collection, with special day or week passes for tourists.
Create and upload awareness videos on road rules.

Infrastructure

Implement a multi-modal transport system with slow and express buses, with connections to trains at Moratuwa, Kottawa, Ragama, and Negombo.
Implement a multi-modal transport system with slow and express buses at Piliyandala, Battaramulla, and Kadawatha.
Ensure all new buses coming to the city from multi-modal hubs are low-floor buses with disabled access.
To mitigate traffic, branches of best schools, hospitals, and all other Colombo-based facilities will be made available in the 7 main corridors to Colombo (Moratuwa, Kottawa, Ragama, Negombo, Piliyandala, Battaramulla, and Kadawatha), and other districts.
Build 100,000 apartments in central Colombo to reduce morning and evening traffic, as the traffic flow will be directed outward, minimising congestion.
Replace roundabouts at all junctions with traffic lights to reduce costs and travel time.
Ensure all pedestrian crossings are properly lit and maintained.
Implement overhead crossing bridges where a high number of people cross roads.
Introduce minibus services to the 1,400 villages situated over 2 km from a main road.
Build 1,500 charging stations for electric vehicles.
Develop road infrastructure for proposed new economic centres and fish markets at each district.
Develop a National Logistics Network for faster movement of goods.
Modernise overcrowded railway stations with utilities, canteens, clean public washrooms, and comfortable seating.
Equip all railway crossings with warning signals and gates.
Increase number of coaches from 6 to 15 and increase seating for commuters in high-demand overcrowded trains.
Establish designated tourist train coaches with luxury services.

Civil Aviation

Technology

Allow distance check-in at Bandaranaike International Airport from the Lotus Tower.
Introduce facial and fingerprint biometrics for fast check-in at immigration counters.
Implement BIA app to have real-time flight details, terminal maps, taxi details and booking, restaurants, and airport hotel details.

Infrastructure

Expand Bandaranaike International Airport with 16 additional aero-bridges.
Transform Ratmalana, Palali, and Mattala airports to international budget airline hubs.
Construct a domestic budget airport at Digana, Kandy within 3 years.
Domestic flights to be available from BIA and Ratmalana budget International airport to:
- Palali
- Trincomalee
- Baticaloa
- Koggala
- Mattala
- Digana, Kandy
Provide free landing and parking facilities to all cargo airlines to increase exports.
Provide facilities for cargo airlines to fly internationally from Trincomalee, Batticoloa, Koggala, and Digana (Kandy).
Remove the luggage handling monopoly in budget airlines and allow budget airlines to execute their own luggage handling.
Convert VVIP lounge and its boarding gates at Bandaranaike International Airport to budget airline operations.
Resume operations at Mattala International Airport.
Develop airports at Koggala, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee for domestic flight operations and construct a new airport for domestic flights in Digana, Kandy.
Match the prices of fuel, landing, parking, airport taxes, aerobridge, and luggage handling charges to those of Malaysia.
Reduce the current turn-around time at Bandaranaike International Airport from 60 minutes to 25 minutes thereby increasing runway movement from 11 to 17 departures per hour.
Increase the number of self check-in counters from 2 to 20 at Bandaranaike International Airport.
Divide all airport charges into peak and off-peak charges, and maintain lower fees during off-peak hours.
Introduce 50-seater aircraft for travellers to move within Sri Lanka.
Increase the number of budget airlines to accommodate low-cost carrier passengers, since there are 55,335 budget accommodation rooms available.
Smart immigration check-in counters to be introduced to increase efficiency.
Introduce and increase the number of direct flights to the top 20 European destinations that bring large volumes of tourists to Sri Lanka, such as:
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- France
- Netherlands
- Italy
All airports to feature domestic flights that connect to international flights.
Establish a well-organised taxi service at Bandaranaike International Airport by providing the following:
- Maintain 2 types of vehicles for travellers’ use.
- Issue duty-free vehicle permits for 900 taxi owners with special vehicle registration plates.

Action Plan

Colombo Port Development The Port currently accommodates 7.5 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs).

New South Port quay length is 4.8 km, with 1.3 km currently fully occupied by Colombo International Container Terminals (LTD).
Three terminals to be built in the remaining 3.5 km area within 3 years. As a result, an additional capacity of 7 million TEUs can be created.
Breakwaters and two terminals of the proposed North Port, of quay length 3.3 km, will be built within 6 years. As a result, a capacity of 6.6 million TEUs can be created.
As a result of these developments, the total capacity of Colombo Port can be increased to 21.1 million TEUs.

Existing capacity of the Colombo Port		7.5 million TEUs
Additional capacity of the remaining South Port		7 million TEUs
Capacity of the proposed North Port		6.6 million TEUs
Total capacity of the Colombo Port		21.1 million TEUs

Hambantota Port Development Awaiting for the new proposal for the Hambantota Port Development.
0% corporate tax and 0% dividend tax will be charged from international companies who establish their head offices in the Country.
Develop cruise destination hubs in Colombo, Galle, Hambantota and Trincomalee. Ships/cruises routes are Colombo–Galle-Hambantota-Trincomalee-Kankasanthurai.
A passenger terminal with adequate berthing space (where ships are anchored) including a modern building with sufficient passenger space, to be developed at the Colombo Port. The preferred location for this development is on the Bandaranaike Quay (once the container freight stations activities have been relocated to the South Harbour).
Establish a National Shipping Council to implement, monitor, and review a unified shipping strategy, that would incorporate the following:
- Enhance Sri Lanka’s attractiveness to shipping business
- Facilitate access to capital and financing
- Promote innovation and sustainable growth of ancillary maritime services (Support activities: Refuelling, resupplying with perishables, e.g. food, water, etc.)
Promote Sri Lankan shipbuilding engineering capabilities to other Government bodies and international buyers such as cruise operators.
Promote employment of Sri Lankan seafarers:
- Funding for apprenticeship, specialisation, and seafarer up-skilling.
- Improvement of seafarer employment security, conditions, and opportunities.
Develop a Maritime Education and Training blueprint.
To alleviate the current port-road congestion, the following steps can be taken:
- Optimisation of the gate process: Automation of the gate process will substantially reduce waiting time for trucks. Additionally, a flexible gate system, which enables most gates to function as entry or exit gates when substantial truck inflows or outflows occur, could further reduce waiting time for trucks.
- Widening of the port access road: The port access road to be widened from 4 to 6 lanes to increase capacity. The section underneath the Aluthmawatha road cross-over will be widened to a 6-lane road.
- Signalling should improve the use of the six lanes, for example two lanes for the gates and one lane for inter-terminal traffic.
- Ramps that end near Fort should have gates with sufficient space to align trucks.
- Ramps near Ingurukade junction should not have cross-over traffic; this can be realised with an over-pass.
Digitalise the following processes to improve efficiency in the Port:
- Terminal handling at Jaya Container Terminal (JCT) Port Community Systems
- Gate processes
- Warehouse management processes
- Warehouse cargo clearing processes
- Cargo import and export processes
- Costs and revenue management systems and processes
Digitalise import duty payments to improve the flow of goods.
Introduce scanning facilities to inspect containers. The objective is to reduce physical inspections while maintaining acceptable levels of risk.
Increase the depth in the Prince Vijaya Quay (PVQ) basin to allow deeper draft grain and cement carriers, with a draft of up to 13m.
Introduce a rail-track reservation in the Port of Colombo with extension to South Port to enable direct rail handling near the terminals, particularly to accommodate newly developed inland dry ports.

CEYLON ELECTRICITY BOARD

Number of power stations with Private Power Plants (PPP) :258

Installed Capacity with

PPP: 4,046 MW

Net Generation with

PPP: 15,374 GWh

	No. of Power Stations	Installed Capacity (MW)	Generation (GWh)
Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Total	25	2,903	11,803
Hydro	17	1,399	5,149
Thermal (Oil)	7	604	1,886
Thermal (Coal)	1	900	4,764
Other renewable energies (Wind)	0	0	1.3
Small Island			2.4
PPP: Total	233	1,143	3,571
Other renewable energies (Mini Hydro)	195	394	1,232
Thermal (Oil)	3	533	1,740
Other renewable energies (Wind)	15	128	325
Other renewable energies (Solar, Dendro, Biomass)	20	88	185
Rooftop solar			88
Total	258	4,046	15,374

Source: 2018 CEB annual report

The main costs of CEB are the power purchases and operating costs of existing power plants. The CEB should use a minimum price when purchasing green energy, independent of production cost variations.

Action Plan

Existing Government owned power plants to use the accrual accounting method to calculate power cost.
Estimated levelised cost of energy should be used to select the electricity generating technology when investing in new power plants.
Affordable clean energy to be used when investing in new power plants. Example: CEB will account for a loss of Rs. 30 billion (Rs. 2 x 15 billion units) rupees if the electricity unit cost increases by Rs. 2
Power stations using municipal solid waste to be constructed in every district.
1. Power plants to be built with public and private partnerships. Government to pay tipping fees for the above plants.
VAT and PAL to be exempted when importing LED bulbs. Additional 30% CESS will be introduced for traditional and CFL bulbs.
Promote minimum energy performance standards.
1. Promote efficient lighting.Example: Giving away LED lamps at cost price. The customer base of CEB for households was 5.5 million in 2018. Each household will replace at least one 40W bulb per year. Promoting an energy efficient bulb of 30W will save 10W.Annual savings would be 10 GWh, assuming 1825 hours for a year.
Energy audits to be carried out free of charge by the Government for large commercial buildings and 95% of the first year energy savings to be given back to the customer.
Install Smart Meters in houses which consume more than 500 KWh monthly power consumption. Benefits from this programme would include,
1. Real – time information about energy usage
2. Better management of electricity consumption
3. Enhanced billing efficiency
4. Avoid meter reading costs
5. Reduction in monthly electricity bill
6. Shorter outage durations
7. Ability to monitor Aggregate Technical and Commercial Loss (AT&CL)
Short awareness videos to be developed to promote energy efficient habits for electricity, water and gas, and this to be shared on all social media platforms.

CEYLON PETROLEUM CORPORATION

The existing crude oil refinery was built in 1967 (53 year old technology without hydrocracker) and has a capacity of 40,000 barrels per day.A new plant with hydrocracker and a capacity of 100,000 barrels per day, to be built on the same premises in addition to the current refinery, with 51% ownership and management by the Government.

Target for the year 2030

10 million visitors.
USD 18 billion earnings from tourism.

Action Plan

Introduce a Nation Branding Strategy for Sri Lanka focusing on;
- Airport, Immigration and Investment
- People
- Culture
- Governance
- Tourism
- Exports
Airport Development and Flight Connectivity
- Expansion of Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) with an additional 16 aero-bridges.
- Convert VVIP lounge and its boarding gates at BIA to budget airline operations.
- Develop Ratmalana airport to an international budget airline hub.
- Upgrade Palali airport to an International Airport.
- Resume operations at Mattala International Airport
- Develop airports at Koggala, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee for domestic flight operations and construct a new airport for domestic flights in Digana, Kandy.
- Allow distance check-in in to BIA from the Lotus Tower.
- Match the prices of fuel, landing, parking, airport taxes, aerobridge and luggage handling charges to that of Malaysia.
- Reduce the current turnaround time at BIA of 60 minutes to 25 minutes, to increase the runway movement from 11 to 17 departures per hour.
- Increase the number of self check-in counters from 2 to 20 at BIA.
- Divide all airport charges into peak and off peak and maintain a lower fee during off peak hours.
- Introduce minimum 50 seater aircraft for travellers to move within Sri Lanka.
- Increase the number of budget airlines to accommodate low cost carrier passengers since there are 55,335 budget accommodation rooms available.
- Smart immigration check-in counters to be introduced to increase efficiency.
- Introduce and increase the number of direct flights to the top 20 European destinations that bring large volumes of tourists to Sri Lanka, such as:
  - i. United Kingdom
  - ii. Germany
  - iii. France
  - iv. Netherlands
  - v. Italy
- All airports to feature domestic flights that connect to international flights.
- Introduce 24-hour visa approval for selected nationalities.
- Establish a well-organised taxi service at Bandaranaike International Airport by providing the following;
  - i. Maintain 2 types of vehicles for travellers’ use.
  - ii. Issue duty-free vehicle permits for 900 taxi owners with special vehicle registration plates.
Infrastructure enablers
- Construct a national multi-purpose stadium with a capacity of 80,000-100,000 people for local and international performances.
- To mitigate floods, engineers of Sri Lanka Navy should be responsible for river mouth/estuary and river management, including seasonal dredging and filling.
- Tourist information centres to be built in each main city or district.
- Build resting centres with restaurants and clean toilet facilities along all main roads leading to attractions.
- All train stations to have proper public seating, washrooms, and cafeterias.
- Each major attraction place to be built with proper toilet facilities, proper garbage disposal, proper car and bus parking, and Wi-Fi zones.
- Grow trees along walking paths to provide shade during hot conditions.
- Support fishermen at Weligama and Mirissa fishery harbours with speedboats that produce less noise, to operate whale-watching tours.
- Introduce a mobile application with information of licensed street food vendors including the location and directions via Google Maps, to attract and inform local and foreign visitors.
- Government to create a standard guideline for maintaining rental spaces and apartments and to encourage people to list properties on online rental platforms such as Airbnb.
- Develop heritage sites such as Sigiriya, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Sri Pada, and Kandy, by:
  - a. Landscaping, improving and maintaining public toilets, and providing clean drinking water facilities.
  - b. Opening up gift shops at each site.
- Restoration and development of heritage and religious sites
  - Sacred city of Kandy
  - Ancient city of Sigiriya
  - Sacred city of Anuradhapura
  - Old town of Galle and its fortifications
  - Jaffna Nallur Kovil
  - Embekke Devalaya
- Map the heritage cycle route and introduce cycle tracks.
- Build new aquariums and bird parks near Colombo.
- Develop Dehiwala Zoo with private sector participation
  - Private sector to provide new animal cages that can be branded under the sponsoring private company for 15 years.
  - Carry out a total design revamp and infrastructure upgrade.
  - Rebrand as the “Sri Lanka Zoo”.
  - Operate a tourist bus service from popular city hotels, dedicated to zoo visits.
  - Introduce educational programmes for school children, university students and international students.
  - Introduce a variety of dining and souvenir stores.
- Develop 26 wildlife parks extending up to 573,376.078 Ha, to increase revenue generated.
- Build 3 new zoos at Dikkapitiya in Badulla, and in Vavuniya and Piliyandala.
- Build 2 new elephant orphanages at Lahugala in Ampara District and one at Minneriya.
- Develop botanical, herb and spice gardens around the country.
- Create tropical rainforest experiences by opening up forest reserves to travellers.
- Improve whale watching in Mirissa, Kalpitiya, Trincomalee, and Galle by;
  - Fishery Harbour improvement including proper maintenance of pavements, street lights, drinking water, public toilets, waiting areas, and car or coach parking.
  - Using improvised boats that can seat 200 passengers with a full snack bar and four restrooms.
  - Operate speedboats that reach speeds of 20 knots, to lessen travel-time to locations of sightings. Currently, a location that takes 5-7 hours to reach, could be reached in 1-2 hours using the suggested boats.
- Coral propagation project to revive coral reefs around the country.
- Improve beach activities, such as para motoring, sky diving, kite surfing, and underwater scooters.
- Improve sea turtle hatcheries around the country.
- Provide training and increase the number of certified surf instructors.
- Provide training and increase number of licenced lifeguards.
- Improve the livelihood standards of beach boys by providing suitable soft skills and language training.
- Help the major hospitals in Sri Lanka to obtain the Medical Tourism Certificate.
- Build new city parks with attractions for kids and families within Colombo.
- Invest in entertainment parks similar to “Disney Land”.
- In order to develop “Home Stay” tourism, introduce 100 beach clubs in coastal areas.
- Upgrade trains on Hill Country and Down South tracks to luxury levels.
- Develop Kanniya, Madunagala, and Maha oya hot water springs.
- Provide Government support and workshops to improve hotel rooms and restaurants.
- Identify and develop villages that produce traditional crafts, to enhance the quality of products and generate an income for the craftsmen.
- Provide online training videos for tourist police officers in managing tourist complaints and issues.
- Prepare training videos on language, communication skills, and proper emergency situation management.1. Experiences
  - Introduce a calendar of events
  - Develop 10 districts as main tourist destinations based on arts and crafts, history and heritage, architecture, culture, recreation and leisure, nature and wildlife, adventure, culinary and wellness.
  - Attract tourists during traditional festivals
    - Cater itineraries based on traditional festivities such as Sinhala and Tamil New Year, Vesak, Esala and Deepavali.
    - Brand the Paada Yatra pilgrimage tour from Jaffna to Kataragama (June 8 to July 24, 52 days).
    - Brand the Kataragama pilgrimage.
    - Brand the Anuradhapura city pilgrimage.
  - MICE Tourism (Meetings, Events, and Incentive Travel)
    - Construct two exhibition centres at Ja-Ela and Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte with an area of 30,000 sqm. and all modern facilities to host conferences and exhibitions.
    - Convert 85,000 sqft. of retail space to a convention center at the Lotus Tower.
    - Build a convention centre with an area of 10,000 sqm. at Port City in Colombo.
    - Produce interactive promotional videos to attract business travellers to the Country, including “10 reasons to meet in Sri Lanka” showcasing all the facilities.
    - Market Hambantota convention centre for conferences and exhibitions.
    - Simplify business visas for MICE travellers
      - Waive visa requirement for all MICE visitors who have a valid visa from a recognised destination.
      - Offer fast-track visa processing services for MICE attendees at immigration counters in airports by having dedicated lanes.
      - Simplify business event licences for MICE events by introducing a fast-track licencing process for MICE attendees.
    - Provide MICE organiser assistance through experienced professionals such as event planners, audio-visual equipment suppliers, freight forwarders, gifts and souvenirs, printers, translators and interpreters, etc.

Youth

Promote youth employment through training programmes at youth centres, on:
1. Programmable logic control
2. Computer-aided design (CAD)
3. Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM)
4. Computer-aided engineering (CAE)
Introduce an online portal to educate youth on personal financial management.
Introduce a talent identification and development programme through access to resources, mentorship, and industry connections for art, music, media, dance, entrepreneurship, and sport.
Introduce a co-working space to pilot businesses and ideas with low start-up risks for youth.
Introduce a 6-month fellowship programme for 21 selected teams with 22 alternating sessions of workshops and dedicated mentorship (1-to-1 sessions) to take their startup ideas to the next level.
Initiate a series of talks where industry veterans, thought leaders and entrepreneurs will be invited to share their experiences with aspiring youth entrepreneurs.
Introduce new courses that match job-market demands, through the National Youth Council.
1. Recommended courses:
  - Fitness instructors
  - Retail sales
  - Gardening
  - Receptionist
  - Café workers
  - Waiters
  - Child-care
  - Hospital attendants
  - Cleaning professionals
Introduce job search assistance and career counselling at the National Youth Council.
Facilitate personal and soft-skill development through online video tutorials.

Initiatives for rural youth employment

Geo-tag unemployed youth in each district and allocate them with suitable jobs based on their qualifications.
Introduce counselling for rural youth on job application procedures and job search.
Organise a youth connection programme to support youth aged 13 to 19 who have left school without completing Grade 12 or are currently unemployed.
1. Through the programme, provide guidance tailored to individual education and training needs.
2. Provide a pre-vocational training platform for unemployed youth with poor academic performance.
  - Additionally, the youth connection programme will provide services for the differently-abled, identifying unique talents, capabilities, and potential.
  - The programme will be designed to develop independence, life skills and work-readiness.

Assistance to startups

Introduce an online platform containing the best startup magazines from around the world in Sinhalese, Tamil, and English, where the magazines will be uploaded on a weekly basis.
Allocate Rs. 5 billion (Rs. 1 billion x 5 TV channels) for TV channels (3 Sinhalese TV channels, 1 Tamil channel, and 1 English channel) with the best proposal for a startup reality show which will cover 5 industries on 5 different days on a weekly basis.
Develop a startup portal including free resources such as business guides, online courses, market research, and partnered services.
Establish an angel-investor tax deduction scheme to boost investment activity in the country and attract qualified angel investors.
An approved angel investor who invests a minimum of Rs. 1 million of qualifying investment in a qualifying start-up, is eligible to claim a tax deduction of 50% of his investment amount at the end of a two-year holding period.
Initiate startup incubators in universities where students are provided with services such as mentoring, business lab facilities, financial advice, student patent programmes, IP commercialisation, etc.
Provide capital for unemployed youth (from age 18-37) up to Rs. 750,000 as a one-time interest free loan for entrepreneurs to make their business plans bankable.

Action Plan on sports

Smart Sports

Develop a platform for digitisalising all sports records and manage each player directly from school level.
Use AI to choose winning combinations of players to represent the sport at National and International level.
Use smart wearables with high calibre players to track their vital statistics during practice sessions and matches to predict future performance.
Use AI to predict event attendance rates and optimise ticket pricing and sales to improve monetisation of sports.
Provide online video-based training and courses for coaches.

Athletics

Introduce a “National Sports Talent Portal” for school athletics
- Track events: 100m to Marathon.
- Field events: All field events including high jump, javelin, etc.
The portal will ensure the availability of athletic records at school, circuit, zonal, provincial, and all-island levels for all schools. Select and create a pool of the top performing 1,000 athletes who have the capability to reach Olympic level and provide them with training in Colombo with education, accommodation, and expenses.
Introduce an online portal that utilises videos to teach sports techniques for all main sports.
Improve and expand the National Institute of Sports Science for the training of coaches.
1. Introduce sports education courses, and make them available to trainers and sports team managers, for development of coaching skills, sports medicine, and associated skill-sets such as physiotherapy, recovery management, etc.
2. Create online courses and training videos for coaches.
Recruit sports persons with international experience as assistant coaches. Best performers in coaching diploma courses from various disciplines are to be engaged on a contract basis.
Provide tax incentives for companies that sponsor sports teams.
Develop a stadium with a synthetic rubber athletic track for each province.
Give public access to facilities at Department of Sports Development (fitness centre, pools) by charging a nominal fee. All facilities to be used under supervision of a trained coach.
Establish a disability sports centre to assist the differently abled to train and participate in sports activities.
Develop existing sports complexes.
1. Rebrand complexes as “sports clubs” and every district to have one fully equipped sports club with all the main facilities including a pool, gym, playground, etc.
2. These sports clubs to have recreational activities such as dining spaces and sports camps.
3. Build a sports city within 15 km of Colombo, including an academy, recreation area, and various sports activities.
Establish a sports infrastructure development strategy with the private sector. The Government will lease out an existing underutilised infrastructure facility for a fixed period of 50 years and the private entity will renovate the facility and maintain the premises.
Implement an app to find the nearest sport facility such as swimming pools, cycling routes, cricket or football grounds, etc.
Sports league events to be held for cricket, hockey, basketball, volleyball, netball, and football with participation of foreign players.
Attract international triathlon events to Sri Lanka by improving necessary infrastructure and facilities that will conveniently accommodate organisers and participants. Suggested areas for triathlons are Hambantota, Colombo, Nuwara Eliya, and Trincomalee.
Develop existing golf courses and facilities to attract international golf tournaments to Sri Lanka.
Maintain an event calendar for sports.
Develop and strengthen traditional sports and recreational activities such as Angampora, Kabadi, and Elle.

Cricket

Include cricket in the “National Talent Portal” and identify individual performance levels of each player across the country.
Use AI for the early identification of skill-sets in individual sportspersons, particularly for sports such as cricket.
Include smart bats and smart balls that collect data from players and school level cricketers, helping decision makers analyse and select the most talented players.
Develop a cricket ground in every district with domestic level standards.
Develop Radella cricket ground as an international ground.

Action Plan

While embracing Buddhism as the main religion of Sri Lanka, consciously define ourselves as a multicultural country that not only tolerates but welcomes various minority cultures. Provide constitutional commitments to this end while proactively emphasising our identity as Sri Lankans.
Recognise multiculturalism as a defining aspect of our National identity and embrace the possibility that we could learn from the experiences of each other. Develop a true understanding of each other’s religious foundations, history of their race, events of cultural importance, social needs, language, and traditions (both race and religion). Sri Lanka needs to proudly affirm the diversity of its society and articulate a commitment not to allow religious extremism to disturb the multicultural nature of the Country.
Pro-actively engage and build trust between communities on issues such as education, charity, personal and dietary laws before engaging with them on security issues.
Establish a Religious and Multiculturalism Act which will cover the following:
- - Raise awareness among the Sri Lankans about the richness and beauty of our Motherland derived from religious and multicultural diversity.
  - Proactively celebrate both religious and ethnic diversity.
  - “Zero-tolerance” on hate crimes and acts of extremism.
4.1 Establish a Religious Harmony Act which will cover the following:
- - A mechanism to monitor potential and actual incidents related to promotion of ill-feeling or hatred among religious groups.
  - Once identified, these issues should be promptly addressed before they culminate into long-term discord between religious and ethnic minorities.
  - Ban religious groups or organisations belonging to any faith or ideology which incites the public towards violence and manifestly disturbs the peace through hate speech.
  - The Act will further address incidents of religious extremism. Should an act of religious extremism takes place, decision makers will need to clearly articulate and communicate the difference between individual responsibility and blanket criminalisation of an entire community.
  - Immediately ban any organisations that engage in, support, or are associated with terrorist activities, or are found to have links with foreign terror groups.
  - Ensure that the media does not sensationalise news that may create unwarranted prejudices against minorities in the Country. There has to be a delicate balance between freedom of expression and “responsible expression”, which needs to be practised by all media outlets for news publications, both online and offline.
  - Create a cross-cultural round table on religious and multicultural security. It will be imperative that leaders of all religious and ethnic minority groups are represented. This would essentially be a forum where any issues that come to light are effectively discussed and the method by which they could be resolved is decided.
4.2 Restraining orders against individuals (priest, monk, pastor, imam, elder, office-bearer) or any other person who is in a position of authority in any religious group or institution or any member thereof who has committed or is attempting to commit any of the following acts:
- - Causing feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will, or hostility between different religious groups;
  - Carrying out activities to promote a political cause, or a cause of any political party while, or under the guise of, propagating or practising any religious belief;
  - Carrying out subversive activities under the guise of propagating or practising any religious belief; or
  - Exciting disaffection against the President or the Government while, or under the guise of, propagating or practising any religious belief. Inciting, instigating, or encouraging any religious group or religious institution or any person to commit any of the aforementioned terror acts.
4.3 International Acts
- Multiculturalism and Religious Harmony Act
- Multiculturalism Act
Organise a “Peace Committee” comprised of all religious leaders. The committee will meet weekly to ensure relevant communities maintain harmony and avoid conflict.
A Code of Conduct should be evolved in consultation with leaders of different communities for the observance of various festivals which should be widely publicised, to ensure that festivals are observed in an amicable atmosphere without causing annoyance to any individual or sections of society.
Video/Audio coverage and cameras may be used to record the proceedings of religious processions and gatherings, to be considered in case of communal disturbances for speedy identification and prosecution of the offenders and, in the process, could also act as a deterrent.
Effective and meaningful action to be taken to curb and check rumours. Channels of communications also need to be established with leaders of all communities, and strict action should be taken against anyone inflaming passions and stoking communal tension by intemperate and inflammatory speeches/utterances. Media and other channels should be effectively utilised to clear out any false rumours and keep people informed.
“Catch them young” should be the philosophy for promoting the concept of communal harmony. Inspiring literature should be distributed among Government and private sector students, and they should be encouraged to organise various competitions and discussions on the subject of communal harmony. Religious and ethnic diversity and multiculturalism should be included as part of the school curriculum.
Regular monitoring and briefing of the media to avoid exaggerated perceptions about incidents that may provoke sentiments and passions, especially in a communal situation.
- Appoint a Chief Minister and four state ministers for Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Double the current allocated budget and distribute the budget at the ratio of the respective population in each religion.
Establish a “Home Police” programme.
- Female police officers to be trained online to resolve community problems.
- 10 female police officers to be allocated to each police station.
- 5 scooters to be allocated to each police station.
- Police officers visit individual homes to resolve any minor disputes within communities.
- Police officers to be given online training with the aim of reducing the current daily complaints from 3,000 to 2,000.
- This process to be monitored centrally.

Action Plan

Strategic plan to improve Arts

Develop art markets in all tourist hubs in Sri Lanka.
Support local artists to access affordable drawing storage tubes that enables foreigners to carry canvases.
Launch a website to promote traditional arts with the assistance of non-profit organisations. Also, assist local artists to use colours from best selling artworks across the globe.
Develop an online platform funded by the Government for local artists to sell their artwork.
Publish an online art magazine.
Organise an art expo which includes paintings, sculptures, installations, and photographs from internationally acclaimed art galleries and collectives.
Co-host the World Summit on Arts and Culture.
Provide tax incentives for sponsorship of arts, culture and heritage activities approved by the Ministry of Arts and Culture.

Strategic plan for Culture

Launch a YouTube channel to showcase Sri Lanka’s diverse cultural, religious, and traditional heritage.
Organise festivals and events of different cultures, to raise awareness amongst tourists and locals.
Promote tourism by organising local cultural performances in foreign countries.
Organise a five-day free-for-all arts festival featuring local and international talent.
Establish a cultural economic development agency to act as a connector between creators, private investors or businesses, consumers, regulating bodies, and policymakers.
Carry out culture mapping, which includes regional information on the following categories:
- Performing arts
- Traditional cuisines
- Traditional games
- Traditional customs
- Traditional clothing
- Prominent figures in local arts and culture
- Art infrastructure
Create a cultural activity calendar.
Organise folk performances in all districts.
Promote awareness of cultural traditions through educational programmes.
Conduct training, community outreach, and workshops for children and teenagers.
Encourage publishers to convert hard copies into e-books or audiobooks.
Support and motivate local authors, to help them develop their global appeal.
Provide virtual tours of museums.
Improve the standards and security of local museums.

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Sri Lanka 2030: A Developed Nation – Dhammika’s action plan launched

Read the full document below;

Discussion Policy Paper: Volume 1

“Changing Role of the Public Servant”

01. MINISTRY OF NATIONAL SECURITY

A NATION RICH IN SAFETY AND FREEDOM

Action Plan

02. MINISTRY OF FINANCE AND PLANNING

A NATION RICH IN WEALTH

Action Plan

Goals: Create a better Sri Lanka through finance

Policies relating to the Department of Inland Revenue

Policies relating to Customs

Government capital investments

Government recurrent spending

Future policy and strategy planning for Sri Lanka

03. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

NATION RICH IN HUMAN CAPITAL

To increase GDP per capita from

USD 4,000 to USD 12,000

Action Plan

04. MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION

A NATION RICH IN HUMAN CAPITAL

Action Plan

05. MINISTRY OF TECHNICAL, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (TVET)

A NATION RICH IN HUMAN CAPITAL

Action Plan

06. MINISTRY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

A NATION RICH IN HAPPINESS

Social transfers

Social transfers for those living in poverty or in danger of falling into poverty

Action Plan

07. MINISTRY OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

NATION RICH IN CONVENIENCE

DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT

Issue 1: Distance from the particular district to Colombo

Solution: Multi-services to be provided from each district.

Issue 2: Issues unique to each district on Culture and Language

a. Cultural

b. Language

c. Lack of infrastructure

Action Plan

08. MINISTRY OF JUSTICE AND PRISON REFORMS

NATION RICH IN DISCIPLINE

Action Plan

Police Department

Smart Security

Prison Rehabilitation

Disciplined Citizens

Ministry of Justice

09. MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND AGRO-BASED INDUSTRY

A NATION RICH IN PROSPERITY

Goals: Drive agricultural transformation that is inclusive of the following:

Action Plan

Agriculture exports

10. MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES

NATION RICH IN GREENERY

Action Plan

Coastal environment protection

Biodiversity

Disaster Management

Wildlife parks

11. MINISTRY OF HEALTH

NATION RICH IN WELLBEING

Action Plan

12. MINISTRY OF INVESTMENT PROMOTION AND JOB CREATION

A NATION RICH IN INDUSTRIES

Target

Action Plan

13. MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

A NATION RICH IN DIPLOMACY

Action Plan

14. MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

NATION RICH IN TECHNOLOGY

Action Plan

VISION

MISSION

TECHNOLOGY ENABLER

15. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT AND CIVIL AVIATION

A NATION RICH IN MOBILITY