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Sri Lanka Local Government
Because Sri Lanka is a unitary rather than a federal state,
local government institutions have had a very limited role in the
political process. The country traditionally has been divided
into nine provinces, which had played an important administrative
role during the British colonial era. The principal local
government subdivisions since the early 1980s have been the
twenty-four administrative districts
(see
fig. 1). Before 1981
each district contained administrative offices representing most
national-level ministries and known collectively as
kachcheri (government offices). Two officers of major
significance at the district level were the government agent and
the district minister. Government agents, appointed by the
central government, traced their origins to the colonial era, but
the office of district minister, which was filled by individuals
concurrently serving as members of Parliament, was created after
1978. Because of the district ministers' access to central
government funds for patronage purposes, they tended to diminish
the power and influence of the government agents.
In 1981 the kachcheri system and the subdistrict
system of elective village and town councils were replaced by
district development councils and subdistrict-level units known
as pradeshiya mandalaya (divisional council) and
gramodaya mandalaya (village council)
(see
fig. 11). The
councils were created largely to satisfy minority aspirations for
local self-government and were designed to exercise a significant
measure of autonomy, especially--as the name implies--in the area
of economic planning and development. Although the district
development councils served in the late 1980s as conduits for
central government funds, they also had been granted the
authority to collect taxes and manage their own budgets and were
given responsibility for educational and cultural activities
within their spheres of jurisdiction. Each district council
consisted of some members appointed by the central government and
others elected by local constituents for four-year terms on the
basis of proportional representation. Their deliberations were
presided over by the district ministers who were, as mentioned,
members of Parliament (they did not in all cases represent in
Parliament the district in which they exercised this function);
government agents served as council secretaries.
The subdistrict-level mandalaya, or councils, were
designed to promote village-level democracy and provide support
for district development council programs. The changes
implemented in 1981 affected the 75 percent of the population
living in rural areas. Twelve municipal and thirty-eight urban
councils continued to function in urban areas in the late 1980s.
Data as of October 1988
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