Influence of supply gaps of utility services on livelihood sustenance of rural sector: Lessons from the case of Kalyanipura, Weli-Oya in northern Sri Lanka

Abstract

Introduction In the present day context, sustaining livelihood in rural village setting has become a challenge. Providing basic utility services such as water (both for drinking purposes and for farming), electricity and motorized mobility to remote villages is capital intensive. Non-availability of access to such services could make rural life uneasy and unattractive, and could lead to unsustainability of such villages. Kalyanipura in Weli-Oya is such a deep rural enclave in the Mullaitivu District where the villagers face immense hardships in meeting their basic utility requirements. The village, formerly known as “Dollar Farm”, a Sinhala village which was brutally destroyed by the LTTE terrorists in 1984, was re-settled in the aftermath of the defeat of terrorism in 2009, together with six other villages. Over 200 families were given two acres of paddy land and another two-and-a-half acres of land for a house, under the supervision of Mahaweli Authority. Kalyanipura is one of the few Sinhala villages currently existing within the Northern Province. The village has neither motorized transport access, nor has it got electricity grid connectivity. Though farming appears to be the intended main livelihood of the villagers (as reflected by the land provided when re-settled), there is no irrigation system, and the farmers have to depend either on well water or on rain for irrigation purposes. Well is the only source of potable water, in close proximity to an area where Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) is quite frequent. A significant utility service supply problem is therefore evident. No surprise that nearly three fourths of the number of families settled after 2009 have already left the village, and only 43 families continue to live there. The paradigm of providing rural access to utility services is different to that in urban settings, and involves construction of utility infrastructure over longer distances. With regard to electricity, for instance, rural electrification calls for bringing electricity to distant villages Galindo (2014) and supplying through the grid might involve heavy energy losses on the one hand and inadequate economies of scale on the other. According to Brookshire and Wittington (2010) significant share of population in developing countries does not have access to satisfactory water supply; the problem is particularly acute in the rural areas. Inadequate quantity or quality of water supply can be a limiting factor in poverty alleviation and economic recovery, resulting in poor health and low productivity, food insecurity and constrained economic development Gbadegesin and Olorunfemim (2007). Even though the strategic importance of water resources management is now recognised because of increasing demands and rising costs, coupled with diminishing supplies Sharma et. al. (1996), the efforts of solving the problems faced by people, particularly those living in the rural areas, have not been successful. The planning process has routinely failed to lead to successful development projects. Often, the projects do not pass the simplest of benefit-cost analyses, and the institutional frameworks developed for the administration of such projects are found flawed. Any weaker supply of utilities and their quality would make village life cumbersome and unpleasant, thus could push residents to abandon such villages, leading to lesser and lesser number of villagers remaining and causing further diseconomies of supply. This creates a negative cycle of causes and effects, and becomes a development dilemma. Rural access toutilities thus deserves special reflection; the parameters may vary from one country to another and one locality to another, leading to different policy outcomes, and directly affecting design, implementation and evaluation parameters of utility supply programmes Galindo (2014).