Browsing by Author "Dharmadasa, R. A. P. I. S."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Determinants of absenteeism in tea plantation workers (Case study in selected tea estate in Badulla)
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Rathnayake, R. M. P. S.; Dharmadasa, R. A. P. I. S.
    Absenteeism is a common problem in many industrial units, small or big, private or Government. It can be defined as a single day of missed work (Martocchio&Jimeno 2003), an individual’s lack of physical presence at a given location and time when there is a social expectation for him or her to be there (Martocchio& Harrison, 1993) or non-attendance of employee for scheduled work (Gibson 1966, john 1978). Concerning tea sector in Sri Lanka, chronic absenteeism is one of the major problems which may lead to out-migration in the long run (Institute of Social Development, 2008). The labour situation on plantations has gone from one of surplus to deficit, with an annual decline at the rate of 10% – 20% of the workforce (Institute of Social Development, 2008). This has caused the privatized large-scale plantation or estate to afflict with low productivity and high cost of production which resulted for continuous low profit margins (Institute of Social Development, 2008). Sri Lankan tea production is mainly concentrated into seven regions and Uva region is having nine sub regions. Among these, Telbadde estate is the largest entity in Badulla/Demodera/Hali-Ela sub region (Sri Lanka Tea Board). According to the estate reports, Telbadde estate has one of the largest working populations in this region as well as high rate of absenteeism. As the absenteeism has become problematic to the estate in the short run as well as long run, this study attempts primarily to identify the factors affecting the short run absenteeism. Methodology There are 161 holdings in estate sector all over the Badulla district (Statistical Information on Plantation Crops, 2012). Among them one of the largest entities is Telbadde estate employing 1346 workers with 464.50 ha of land extent. This estate manly consists with six divisions. COBO and Lower divisions are the farthest while Upper and West-Morland are the nearest divisions to the estate office.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Determinants of Poverty in Tea Estate Workers in Nuwara Eliya District
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Wijerathne, K. M. D. L.; Dharmadasa, R. A. P. I. S.; Shyamalie, H. W.; Karunarathna, B. M. N. C.; Pilapitiya, H. M. C. G.
    As a developing country, poverty is a major issue in Sri Lanka. The poverty or poor is expressed as lack of access to basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education etc. The poverty line specifies the minimum standard of living condition in the society to which everybody should be entitled. However, income level and other facilities available to people in the different sectors may vary. Also, the household living standard has a strong relationship with the poverty of the people. NuwaraEliya district is one of the major tea growing areas in Sri Lanka. Of the total population in NuwaraEliya district (706,588), 53.6 % of the population is belonged to estate sector (Central Bank, 2013). Knowing the socio-economic factors which affect to poverty in estate sector is vital to find the strategies for improving their living conditions. Therefore, this study attempts to identify the determinants of poverty in estate sector. The results of the study will be useful to make policies and suggestions to improve their living conditions of estate workers in NuwaraEliya district. Methodology The present study was conducted in tea growing locations of NuwaraEliya district. There are five District Secretariat (DS) divisions in NuwaraEliya District and of them, NuwaraEliya DS division was purposely selected for the study, since the highest estate population is recorded in this DS division (Central Bank, 2013). Multi stage sampling method was used for the selection of tea estates and systematic sampling technique was used to select the respondents. Out of seventy two GramaNiladari divisions, four GramaNiladari divisions were randomly selected. An estate was randomly selected from each selected GramaNiladhari division. Fifty workers were selected from each estate for the survey and total sample size was 200 estate workers. Primary data relating to various parameters of socio - economic status were gathered through well designed and pre tested questionnaire. The secondary information was collected from various published/unpublished sources. Tabular and regression techniques were employed to analyse the data. Binary Logistic regression model was employed to identify the determinants of poverty. A poverty level (poor or non - poor) was decided by using the real per capita expenditure as a cut off point corresponding to Sri Lanka Official Poverty Line (OPL) Rs. 3924 in 2014 August (Department of Censes and Statistic, 2014).
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Impact of Off-Farm Income on Tea Production of Tea Small Holders in Galle District
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2012) Kumara, K. H. J.; Dharmadasa, R. A. P. I. S.
    The total Sri Lankan tea extent is approximately 221,969 ha out of that 60% of the land extent belongs to the small holders. There are about 40Q000 tea small holders in Sri Lanka.Small holding sector plays a vital role by producing more than 70% of the annual tea production in Sri Lanka (Source: TSHDA, 2011). There is a notion in the minds of small holders that cultivation of tea alone is not enough for their survival. So, there is a great potential for them to seek another income generation source.Off-farm activities have become an important component of livelihood strategies among tea small holders in Sri Lanka. Off farm income means the total income emerges from other sources except in primary farm production of crop, livestock, poultry and fisheries of a householder. Off-farm work has become a significant source of income for farmfamilies (Mishra et al., 2002). Most of the small holders have given more emphasis and investments on other sources of income. They believe that they could get a higher Return on investment through investing on other sources of income than that of growing tea. Due to these reason the small holders are shifting away from the Tea cultivation and they strive less and invest less money on tea cultivation. The research was conducted in order to identify the impact of off - farm income on tea production and to identify most significant economic factors which affecting on tea production of tea small holders in Galle district.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Labour migration and paddy production; a comparative analysis
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Haluwana, H.M.M.K.; Dharmadasa, R. A. P. I. S.
    Migration can be identified as the flow or movement of people from the place of origin to the other surrounding, whether inside or outside the country with various reasons. Migration plays a major role in the economic development of Sri Lanka. In recent years, the outflow of Sri Lankan workers has shown an increasing trend. Sri Lanka is predominantly an agricultural country and paddy sector receives the highest priority in development agenda in Sri Lanka, as rice is the staple food in the country. At present Sri Lankan paddy sector suffers from many constraints such as scarcity of arable land, high cost of inputs and scarcity of labour (Ranathunga, 2011). Scarcity of labour for paddy production occurs mainly due to labour migration (Paris.et.al, 2009). In many studies, researchers find out the various impacts of migration. But it is very fewer Sri Lankan studies on examine the impact of labour migration on paddy production. In this context the objectives of the study were (i) to find out the impact of labour migration on paddy production and (ii) to estimate the production function of paddy in relation to the labour migration. Methodology Research was carried out Galaha, Thalathuoya and MarassanaGovijanaseva divisions under the Pathahewahata Divisional Secretariat division in Kandy District. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select 150 paddy farm families from selected area. Multi stage sample was surveyed based on a semi structured pre-tested questionnaire to gather necessary information. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analysis the data. Descriptive statistical methods were used to describe the characteristics of the sample such as demographic information about paddy farmers and migrants, production details in paddy and labour usage in Production analysis.(Nonthakot and Villano, 2008). Empirical model : lnY⁡ = β0 +βiln⁡(X i) + ⁡i function was used for econometrics The Y is the yearly output from paddy production in kilograms. Xi denotes the vector of independent variables such as family labour input, land extend, yearly fixed capital, fertilizer inputs, seed quantity, land quality and household type. In paddy production labour is used under three categories, family labour, hired labour and exchange labour. Among those categories family labour was used for the empirical model. Labour input was measured in man days. Variable of land extend was measured by acre. Yearly fixed capital gives the real value of all machinery, equipment, and value of land in rupees. Variable of fertilizer input shows the amount of fertilizer usage per year in kilograms. Variable of the seed quantity shows the quantity of seed paddy used for cultivation in kilograms. Land quality is a dummy variable distinguishing whether it is irrigated land or not. Household type is a dummy variable indicating the household with at least one out migrant. The references group is the household without any out migrant.ɛi is the stochastic disturbance term. Results and Discussion According to descriptive statistics, nearly 78% in the sample was male and the rest 22% were female. Most of farmers in the sample were older than 40 years. 58% farmers of the sample were educated up to ordinary level. Most of farmers in this area had a higher level of experience. 39% of farmers had more than 30 year experience. 40% of farmers had10 to 30 years experience. Farmers in this area had a diversified income sourcing, income from paddy cultivation, vegetable and other crops cultivation, animal husbandry, from private sector and government sector occupation and specially from the remittances. Most of farmers get 100000 to 600000 rupees income per year. In that income category 58.06% were migrant household and 41.94% were non-migrant household. Most of farmers in the area engage in small scale paddy cultivation. Most of them (48%) cultivate less than an acre. Only 1.32% farmers cultivate more than 3 acre. The area gets 1500kg/acre average productivity. To cultivate 1 acre of land area need 70 man days, on average. 55% from the total sample were migrant household and 45% were non-migrant household. Among the migrants 74% were male and 26% were female. Most of migrants were very young people (<30 years). There were 121 migrants in the sample. Among them 81% were send in remittances to their household.In econometric analysis, first present the findings on the determinants of paddy production of the total sample.Labour input played a positive role in paddy production with elasticity being around 6.77 for households.Fertilizer was significant with a positive relationship. 1% increase of fertilizer caused to increase yield by 0.37%.Quantity of seed paddy was significant with-1.62 elasticity. Land quality is significant with -0.02elasticity.