By Jaffna Monitor Staff
Colombo, 14 November 2026
Mano Ganesan, the leader of the Tamil Progressive Alliance, said on Friday that the government’s 2027 budget had failed the Malaiyaha Tamil community. He said it gave no housing figures for the plantations, offered no legal guarantee for estate workers’ pay, and took powers away from the provincial councils.
In a statement issued the day after President Anura Kumara Dissanayake presented the budget, Mr. Ganesan, a member of Parliament, set out six concerns. He said he had written to the President, who is also the finance minister, the previous week and tabled the letter in Parliament. In the letter, he reminded the President that by parliamentary tradition a budget speech is not merely an accounts sheet but an address to the nation, setting out the government’s policy direction for the coming years. “But I was disappointed yesterday,” Mr. Ganesan said.
Housing
Mr. Ganesan said the government had built no new houses for plantation families in the past two years. In his letter, he had asked the President to say exactly how many houses would be built next year with Indian grant money and with Sri Lankan government funds. He said the plantations minister, Samantha Vidyaratne, did not have the figures either.
The budget speech gives no number. It says only that the programme to build 10,000 houses for the plantation community with the help of the Government of India “will be further accelerated.” Mr. Ganesan called this another vague assurance.
Wages
Mr. Ganesan’s party supported the Rs. 200 daily allowance for estate workers when it was first announced in 2025, expecting further progress. Instead, he said, the Regional Plantation Companies raised the daily tea-plucking target from 18 kilograms to 25 kilograms for every worker.
He had asked the President to make the increase legally binding by setting it through the Wages Board and publishing it in the gazette. He had also asked for an explicit commitment that it would cover all four types of estates: those run by the Regional Plantation Companies, state-owned estates, smallholdings and private estates.
The speech says only that money has been allocated to continue the Rs. 200 allowance in 2027. It does not mention the Wages Board, a gazette notification or which estates are covered.
Hospitals and devolution
Mr. Ganesan criticised the budget’s proposal to transfer six district general hospitals from the provincial councils to the central government. Four are in the Northern Province, at Mannar, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya and Kilinochchi, and two are in the Western Province, at Gampaha and Avissawella. He said health was one of the core subjects devolved under the 13th Amendment. By delaying provincial council elections and starving the provinces of funds, he said, the government was using the neglect of hospitals as an excuse to take back devolved responsibilities instead of strengthening provincial administrations.
He said the budget had also ignored the poor state of health care in the plantation areas. He had called for the Glencairn and Maskeliya hospitals to be merged into a single, fully upgraded hospital with additional specialised units. The speech does not mention either hospital.
Land
The budget proposes a new Upper Watershed Area Management Authority to protect the Central Highlands, which the speech describes as “under severe threat.” It says legislation will be presented to Parliament soon and that talks have begun on a $100 million loan for the authority’s work.
Mr. Ganesan said his party fully supported protecting the environment and the landscape. But he warned that the land rights of Malaiyaha Tamils could be seriously infringed in the name of establishing and funding the authority. He said he had raised the matter directly with the President in Parliament on Thursday. “The livelihoods and land rights of our people must not be disturbed,” he said he told the President. The President shook his head and did not give a direct answer, Mr. Ganesan said.
Mr. Ganesan also accused the government of ignoring its own pledge to young people in the plantations. In its Hatton Declaration, he said, the government had promised to distribute uncultivated land to Malaiyaha plantation youth. Instead, he said, it is now putting that land out to tender for private companies, sidelining the young people who voted for it. He said he had written to the President asking for a clear policy on the issue but had received no reply. The budget speech does not address it.
The government has not publicly responded to his statement.
