Local Government is the root level government sector in Sri Lanka with having legislative power of regulating any type of development on land such as sub division, amalgamation, building construction, boundary walls, etc in addition to the other activities with regards to the public wellbeing. To accomplish the requirement of land related functions, there is a unit named as ‘Technical Division’ or ‘Engineering Division’ with the leadership of an Engineer or a Technical Officer. There are 335 Local Authorities in Sri Lanka, which have been categorized as Municipal Councils (23), Urban Councils (41) and Pradeshiya Sabahs (271).
To be futuristic on the identification of the land plots of a state/country, nowadays governance is moving along with GIS coordinates even in the surrounding regions as well. Currently a number of authorities are working with the GIS mappings in isolation. Some of them are Disaster Management Center, Urban Development Authority, Survey Department and Local Authorities.
In this light, Sri Lanka had the opportunity of getting exposed to an Open Street Map (OSM) training and workshop which was organized by Disaster Management Center (DMC) with the support World Bank funding. It was organized with most of the interested parties including the organizations mentioned above. Therefor this really served as the common and the first gathering of all the parties who are in the need GIS requirements with ‘Open Street Map’ project. Open Street Map Project is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world, so via this forum Sri Lanka would also be mapped by interested parties.
During the first gathering of ‘OSM Sri Lanka Forum’ there were a good participation of OSM enthusiasts and there were valuable ideas delivered by them, and thus it was decided to conduct a few more OSM Trainings and Mapping Workshops for the Senior Technical Officers of Local Authorities as conceptualized in this writing. They also participated in the forum and the idea was well received by participants.
Just to commence with pilot activities in this regards, Mr. Uthpala Rammuthupura, Senior Technical Officer of Negombo Municipal Council who was trained in this OSM is to organize the first Training cum Mapping Workshop in Negombo to map the Negombo Area. In order to replicate this island-wide, it was decided to select one LA from each District , which are the pilot sites of ‘Rationalization of the Front Office project’ in LAA to participate in this first workshop. In total there would be 25 participants for this session. ‘Rationalization of the Front Office project’ is a national project carried out by the Ministry of Local Government and Provincial Councils.
In addition, to get the maximum output of this training and the following workshop are to be conducted in their native languages. In that case, if we are not capable of providing live interpretation in Tamil it is proposed to get the 7 TOs of that last 7 LAA, who speaks in Tamil and they would organize the future workshops in Tamil areas. The Batticaloe MC which has been already trained by DMC project could also be able to support in Tamil Areas since they have already mapped the area.
In other hand, for maximum utilization of their time this training cum workshop is designed as a ‘Two day residential workshop’. This would reduce the traveling time of the participants and increase the concentration to the objective of the workshop. With the availability of the participants calendars and especially the reason of that up-coming Provincial election, it was decided it carry out on 9th and 10th of September 2013.
On the first day of workshop it was planned to train the participants on OSM and on next day to conduct a mapping session. With this experience of the session, it would be possible for the TOs to organize similar type of workshops at their places with the participation of other LAA in the district. Thereafter all of LAA will be empowered to train a selected team and arrange mapping sessions for their administrative area with some quick timelines. With this arrangement, the entire island would be mapped which would be an incentive for the all the national level projects in this GIS space.
Uthpala and his team are very enthusiastic to provide the required facilities, however the trainers and the logistic support shall be provided to support them. Please note that this is a voluntary arrangement from Negombo TO, thus I’m sending this request to you to support the team on any possible sponsorship for the trainers and logistics arrangements.
Pilot Sites of ‘Rationalization of the Front Office project’ are:
-
Kaduwela MC – Colombo District - Bandaragama PS – Kalutara District
- Mahara PS – Gampaha District
- Bentota PS – Gall District
- Hakmana PS – Matara District
- Beliatata PS – Hambantota District
- Buttala PS – Monaragala District
- Badulla PS – Badulla District
- Kuruwita PS – Rathnapura District
- Rambukkana PS – Kegall District
- Wariyapola PS – Kurunegala District
- Wennappuwa PS – Puttalam District
- Harispattiwa PS – Kandy District
- Matale PS – Matale District
- Thalawakele-Lindula UC – Nuwaraeliya District
- Thalawa PS – Anuradhapura Distict
- Thamankaduwa PS - Polonnaruwa District
- Uhana PS – Ampara District
Tamil speeking
- Jaffna MC – Jaffna District
- Karaichy PS – Kilinochchi District
- Maritimepattu PS – Mullaitivu District
- Mannar UC – Mannar District
- Vavuniya UC – Vavuniya District
- Kanthankudy MC - Batticaloa District
- Trincomalee Town & Gravets PS- Trincomalee District
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Dear Bandula,
Lets see how we can start the project. We might need some budget for this.
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