There the sun is setting and sitting in his lorry here Dayaratne is unable to hide his anger. They have been standing in long queues since morning at a petrol-diesel pump in Kaduwela on the outskirts of Colombo. Here now common people are saying that this government does not care and the country has gone into wrong hands. Dayaratne is from the hill village Badulla, 350 km from the country’s capital. He works as a supply for a local company. He has three school children. Most of what Dayaratne earns goes to the education of the children. He says, “I have withdrawn Rs 5,000 together and sent it to my family today so that the family does not face any crisis for the next few days. I can’t work until I get diesel. I have already told the family members to somehow manage with rice and coconut sambol as we cannot spend more.
Here a group of autorickshaw drivers are also condemning the government. The fare has increased, so the passengers are not available. People are in serious trouble due to economic disaster. The hike in petrol prices has led to an increase in fares, reducing the work to half. People have started traveling short distances on foot to save money. The youth are full of questions that what is the President doing well? People are complaining to the President that he has not curbed corruption despite his promises.
The lives of Sri Lankans are being affected by severe economic turmoil. The combination of heavy debt, poor policy planning, the COVID-19 pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine has led to a serious foreign exchange crisis in the country. The prices of things are skyrocketing. There has been an acute shortage of diesel, kerosene, cooking gas, food items and even medicines.
The crisis has reached its peak in the past few weeks. Power generation depends on hydro, thermal and coal capacity. Since this is the dry season, water levels in reservoirs are depleting rapidly and water is being conserved for agriculture, leading to heavy reliance on diesel-powered plants. If there is no US dollar to buy fuel, then the power cut of some hours issued from February has been reduced to 13 hours from March 31.
Mile-long queues at fuel and gas cylinder shops have become a daily thing. Anger is boiling and fighting is breaking out even over small things. Recently, a 29-year-old motorcyclist who broke the queue was stabbed to death. The stress is particularly deadly for the elderly, with four falling to death in March. What is the government’s response? Armed troops have been deployed at many places to maintain order.
Employees have no fuel to go to work and no electricity to work from home. Many long distance buses have stopped operating due to shortage of diesel. The protests are now spontaneous. Opposition parties have held massive rallies calling for President Rajapaksa to ‘go home’. Hashtags like ‘Gota go back’ and ‘Go home Rajapakse’ are trending on social media. A large protest gathering is expected in the next few days.
Sri Lanka’s challenges are enormous. The country’s external debt obligation this year alone is $6.69 billion. Of this, one billion is to be returned in July. The arrival of tourists here has also reduced a lot. The number of people going to work abroad has decreased. The Rajapaksa administration has made the situation worse with disastrous policy decisions. The sweeping tax cuts introduced after the victory of President Rajapaksa in November 2019 have devastated the exchequer.
Sri Lanka imposed a complete ban on agro-chemicals in May 2021, a move made to make Sri Lanka the first country in the world to have 100% organic agriculture. This was fatal to agriculture, and the government eventually backed down, but now the yield was greatly reduced. Many farmers have given up farming. Agrochemicals have returned to the market, but now they are too expensive without subsidies. There is a lot of currency being printed, due to which inflation is increasing further. On March 30, the US dollar was selling for 299 Sri Lankan rupees.
The administration also has many internal problems of its own. President Rajapaksa recently sacked two ministers for publicly criticizing his brother, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa. The ministers who have been removed are vowing to overthrow the government.
There have been long queues outside the immigration department for several months. People need a passport to go abroad. More desperate people are trying to flee by other routes. On March 22, 16 men, women and children reached Tamil Nadu in a boat. People are running away from starvation. He doesn’t remember a worse time than this. About three-fourth of what people earn every day is spent on food.
The government’s strategy so far has been to take short-term bilateral loans from Bangladesh, India and China. India recently extended a $1 billion loan to Sri Lanka for medicines, fuel and food. Another $1 billion additional loan has been sought from India this week. After two years of protests, the president confirmed this month that he would approach the International Monetary Fund for financial aid. However, none of this is the quick fix that Sri Lanka desperately needs right now.
(These are the author’s own views)