> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A Tuk-Tuk Policy Worthy of Tughlaq? - URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/featured/a-tuk-tuk-policy-worthy-of-tughlaq/ - Published: 2026-08-23T11:47:22.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-23T11:49:07.000Z - Author: Jaffna Monitor - Tags: JM Exclusive, August 2026 **COLOMBO** — Sri Lanka is considering barring anyone under the age of 40 from entering the three-wheeler passenger transport trade, a deputy minister said Sunday, reviving a proposal that a previous government abandoned as unlawful and unfair. Nalin Hewage, the deputy minister of vocational education, said the measure was intended to stop school-leavers from going directly into tuk-tuk driving and push them toward further study and skills training. “We expect to increase the age for entering the three-wheeler profession to 40 years,” Mr. Hewage said. “Young people should not be able to leave school and immediately take a three-wheeler onto the road. That is why we are making changes to education.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f0/aa/f0aaf7b7-6b61-437a-846a-1a80de683912/content/images/2026/08/1745744717-nALIN-1.jpg) Nalin Hewage The current minimum age is 18\. A Class B1 licence, covering motor tricycles including hire three-wheelers, is available at that age from the Department of Motor Traffic. Raising the bar to 40 would put a lawful occupation out of reach for the first 22 years of adult life. Mr. Hewage, a National People’s Power member for Galle, did not say whether the restriction would apply only to new entrants or also to drivers already under 40, what legislation would be required, which ministry would bring it, or why the government had settled on 40\. He holds no transport portfolio. Licensing of hire three-wheelers rests with the Department of Motor Traffic under the Motor Traffic Act, with policy oversight from the Ministry of Transport and the National Transport Commission, and hire registration handled provincially. ## Tried once, and rejected The proposal is not new. In May 2017, the Ministry of Transport announced it would issue three-wheeler licences only to applicants over 35, acting on a recommendation from Dr. Sisira Kodagoda, then chairman of the National Council for Road Safety, who cited accident rates involving three-wheelers. It reached Cabinet as a paper from the transport minister, Nimal Siripala de Silva, proposing that passenger three-wheeler drivers be aged between 35 and 70\. The attack came from inside the government. Mangala Samaraweera, then finance minister, called it unfair and feudalistic. Others argued that an age bar on a lawful occupation was contrary to the law of the country. President Maithripala Sirisena rejected the paper. Nine years on, the same instrument is back, set five years higher, with a different reason attached. In 2017 it was road safety. Now it is vocational training. ## What the trade actually is More than a million three-wheelers are registered in Sri Lanka. They reach places buses do not, serve villages far from railway lines, and stay on the road long after other services stop. In much of the country, there is no practical alternative. They are also the employer of last resort. The trade needs no degree, no interview, no employer and no connections. It absorbed garment workers after factory closures, hotel staff after the 2019 Easter attacks, and a large share of the newly destitute after the 2022 collapse. Figures cited by the National Human Resources Development Council, drawn from 2016 data, put roughly 800,000 vehicles in active passenger use, about 9.2 percent of the working population, supporting some 2.8 million people across an estimated 760,000 households. ## The premise does not hold The stated diagnosis is that too many school-leavers are choosing the tuk-tuk over training. Tested against the labour force data, it fails. The Institute of Policy Studies, examining Labour Force Survey rounds, found the largest share of three-wheeler drivers in the 30-to-40 age band, participation rising after 35, and the youth share of the driver population falling between 2013 and 2016. Unemployment figures make the argument harder still. Department of Census and Statistics data for the first quarter of 2026 puts unemployment at 16.1 percent among those aged 15 to 24 and 11.8 percent among those aged 25 to 29, against a national rate of 3.7 percent. It was highest of all, at 6.5 percent, among people holding G.C.E. Advanced Level qualifications or above, and worse for educated women than educated men. That points to a different problem from the one the minister describes. Sri Lanka is not short of educated young people. It is short of work for them. A young man with three A-Level passes and no offer does not need to be stopped from driving. ## What the ban would do A minimum age of 40 removes one occupation from the choices available to every citizen aged 18 to 39\. It creates no substitute. Shut the trade to everyone under 40 and the labour market loses the thing it falls back on when something else collapses. The 22-year-old blocked from driving is unlikely to enroll in vocational training instead. He is more likely to look for work abroad, particularly in the Gulf. Enforcement would be another matter. A three-wheeler can be registered to a father, an uncle or a wife while the younger man drives it. That pushes drivers outside the formal system, complicates licensing, insurance and accident liability, and hands police and other officials wider discretion over who gets stopped. There would also be two classes of driver. If those already working under 40 are allowed to continue, and new entrants are not, the first group holds an advantage for no reason other than timing. Fares would eventually rise. Fewer people entering means fewer vehicles for hire, and the cost falls on passengers with the fewest alternatives: rural households, the elderly, and small businesses that depend on cheap last-mile transport. ## The constitutional question Article 14(1)(g) of the Constitution gives every citizen the freedom to engage in a lawful occupation, profession, trade or business. Driving a three-wheeler for hire is lawful work. Article 12(1) guarantees equality before the law and the equal protection of the law. Neither right is absolute. Article 15 permits restrictions in certain circumstances, including in the interests of the national economy, and allows the state to set qualifications and licensing requirements for particular occupations. There is nothing unusual about requiring a driver to hold a proper licence or meet safety standards. An age of 40 is different in kind. A licence can be obtained, training completed, a medical examination passed. A man of 25 can do nothing to satisfy an age requirement except wait fifteen years. The government would also have to show how the restriction serves the national economy, when its effect is to stop people who cannot find other work from earning. Age is not among the grounds listed in Article 12(2), race, religion, language, caste, sex and others, but the broader equality guarantee in Article 12(1) would still apply, and it turns on whether there is a reasonable basis for the distinction. If the aim is to encourage vocational training, the government would have to explain what a 39-year-old lacks that he acquires on his fortieth birthday. There is a further point. Any restriction must be prescribed by law. A deputy minister’s statement changes nobody’s rights and stops nobody from driving. What matters is what the government actually puts before Parliament, and how. Sri Lanka is also party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, whose Article 6 recognises the right to earn a living through work freely chosen or accepted. ## Why people reached for Tughlaq Within hours, Muhammad bin Tughlaq was being invoked online. The 14th-century Delhi sultan was not a fool. He was highly educated, with interests ranging from philosophy to medicine and mathematics. But he is remembered for decisions that went badly wrong. He shifted his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, forcing people to make the long journey south, and later reversed the decision. He introduced a token currency in base metal; counterfeiting became rampant, and the experiment collapsed. That reputation is why Cho Ramaswamy named his Tamil weekly *Thuglak* in 1970\. The comparison is not really about stupidity. It is about governments making grand decisions without thinking enough about the people who have to live with them. A policy can sound perfectly sensible in a government office. It can look very different to a man who has a three-wheeler loan to pay on the fifteenth.