Award of Appointment Letters and Attachment Letters for Newly appointed Veterinary Surgeons, Research Assistants and Livestock Development Officers of the Sri Lanka Animal Production and Health Service was held under the Patronage of Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation K.D. Lalkantha
Award of appointment letters and attachment letters for newly appointed Veterinary Surgeons, Research Assistants and Livestock Development Officers of the Sri Lanka Animal Production and Health Service was held under the patronage of Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, K.D. Lalkantha yesterday (26th) at the Ministry auditorium. On this occasion, appointments were granted to 23 Veterinary Surgeons, 04 Research Assistants, and 11 Livestock Development Officers.
Participating in this event, Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, K.D. Lalkantha expressed his views.
“Today is a special occasion for you who are receiving appointments. Our public service has a large number of vacancies. Today, not only in this field, but also in essential posts, there are a large number of vacancies for essential officers. Almost every government institution is working with a shortage. Especially in this field, there has been a major shortage recently. For a period of time, recruitments were not carried out due to decisions made by governments. Due to the unfortunate situation in the country, a considerable number of people left the country for other countries because they couldn’t manage staying within the country. A brain drain occurred especially with the recent economic crisis. Therefore, it has become difficult for government institutions to provide good service to the people. In that situation, the current government made a decision that even if everything cannot be completed, these institutional vacancies should be filled systematically within a plan to some extent at least. Also, salaries in the public service are inadequate. Facilities are inadequate. That’s why a salary increase was done in the recent past. So there must be some happiness. To tell the truth, according to our economy, according to the standard of living, we acknowledge that salaries are still not sufficient to live a good life. We hope to build the country and increase salaries proportionately. We also have a fear that you too will leave after receiving these appointments. Therefore, I make a request – please don’t leave. To build the country, we all need to work together.”
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Namal Karunaratne also expressed his views while participating in this event.
“There are a considerable number of problems in the livestock sector. Especially, there is a shortage of human resources and also the shortage of veterinary surgeons. With these conditions, there is an obstacle to reaching goals. I believe that at least a small answer to that obstacle will be found in the future. We have a goal to reach a certain level in dairy production by 2030. As of today, about 35% of milk is produced in our country. If taken daily, only about 1 million liters of milk are produced. Our goal is to increase daily production to 3 million liters. If that happens, we can reach a certain level from that sector. Rather than increasing dairy cattle, we should give priority to increasing milk yield from existing animals. This work should be taken forward through a scientific approach. Your contribution is necessary for that purpose.
We are self-sufficient in eggs. Our money goes out as dollars for dairy-related products. We need to minimize that. We need to bring dollars in. The beginning we have taken must be carried forward. You must be our strength for that journey.”
The Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, Mr. D.P. Wickremasinghe, the Director General of the Department of Animal Production and Health, Mr. K.K. Sarath and a group of others participated in this event.
