SL Minister participates in Jaffna Technical College event

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 09:12 GMT]
With Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) election in a month’s time, Sri Lanka government ministers and its key officials continue to visit Jaffna in an effort to gather support to the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) candidates in Jaffna and Minister Piyasena Gamage was in Jaffna Monday to participate in an event at Jaffna Technical College (JTC) related to the governments ‘180 Day Programme’ under its much publicized ‘Spring of the North’ project, sources in Jaffna said.

Piyasena Gamage, the Minister of Vocational and Technical Training, along with Minister Douglas Devananda, was taken in armoured vehicles by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to JTC where they were welcomed by JTC principal N. Yogarajan and Prof. Balasundarampillai, former VC of Jaffna University and the present Director of Media Resources Training Centre in Jaffna University.

The editor of the Jaffna Tamil daily ‘Yarl Thinakural’ too was present at the event Monday.

Though much publicity was given to the event introducing various vocational and technical training courses for young men and women including the inmates of SLA Thellippazhai Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC) only around fifty youths were allowed to participate in the training courses, education officers who attended the event said.

The government and its ministers are engaged in vote hunting offering false promises and concessions under the 180 Day Programme, civil society sources in Jaffna said.

A group of persons in Jaffna calling themselves intellectuals have begun to participate in events of the above nature with the aim to convince Jaffna people of a bright and promising future but to do so is but an act of betrayal of the Tamils, they added.