Haldumulla is a peaceful place of coexistence where Sinhala and Tamil speakers of diverse ethnic groups live in harmony. Based on this diversity even the schools in the area follow both Sinhala and Tamil mediums of instruction.
A group of youngsters who visited the library of the area noted that there were only a collection of Sinhala and English books in the library. Not a single Tamil text was to be found and when the librarian inquired about this had been able to produce a single and the only copy in Tamil language which had also been a trilingual publication.
Youth of this area, who got the opportunity of participating in a workshop on Right to Information conducted by SLPI, a programme funded by USAID-SDGAP submitted an RTI application to Haldummulla Divisional Secretariat on October 19th 2018 requesting to know the following information:
- How much funding was allocated during the five year period from 2013 to 2018 for the purchasing of books?
- What was the number of books purchased during that period?
They received the following response from the Divisional Secretariat on January 17th , 2019
“In the period between 2013-2014, no fund had been allocated for books. In 2015, the allocation was one hundred thousand (100,000.00) rupees; In2016, the allocation was fifty thousand (50,000.00) rupees; In 2017, the allocation was two hundred thousand (200,000.00) rupees and in 2018, the allocation was one hundred thousand (100,000.00) rupees.
Purchases – 03 books in 2013, 32 books in 2014, 430 books in 2015, 192 books in 2016 and 48 books in 2017.”
Accordingly 5146 books in Sinhala, 972 books in English and only 26 books in Tamil were purchased.
Although there are many Tamil speaking people in the area the library officials seem to have neglected the existence of Tamil readership altogether. In addition, although there is a record of 26 Tamil books in the purchase list there is only one to be located in the library. The fate of the missing books remains unsolved.
The youth said with this revelation they could keep a tab on what happened to the Tamil books and even question the authorities that are in charge of the Library. The youth say that RTI would prevent discrepancies like these that would occur in the future.
This update was prepared by participants of the Information and Communication Training Workshop conducted by the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) through a grant funded by the United States Agency for International Development through the Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project Activity.
“The contents of this post are the sole responsibility of SLPI and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.”
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