Prajashakthi puts communities closer to decisions about what their villages need. It is an ambitious idea backed by serious public money. NewsLine begins following where the Rs.25 billion goes – village by village, district by district.
There is much to commend in the principle behind Prajashakthi. People living in a village may understand what their community needs rather better than officials sitting behind desks in Colombo.
But when Rs.25 billion of public money enters the equation, good intentions are not enough. Accountability must travel with every rupee.
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Prajashakthi is the Government’s national poverty-eradication programme, designed around a significant change in the way development decisions are supposed to be made. Community Development Councils established at Grama Niladhari level are intended to identify local needs and propose projects rather than having every priority determined centrally.
The Government says these proposals can cover the social environment, food security, human-resource development, social protection, the production economy and supply chains and access. Public officials assist the councils, while approved projects can ultimately be implemented through agreements involving the Community Development Council and the relevant public institution.
The thinking deserves serious consideration. When Cabinet originally approved Prajashakthi in February 2025, it acknowledged that despite decades of poverty-alleviation programmes and increasing expenditure, the number dependent upon assistance had continued to grow.
The Government said approximately one in six Sri Lankans was experiencing multidimensional poverty, with the overwhelming majority of those affected living in rural and estate communities. Prajashakthi is intended to move people capable of participating in economic activity towards sustainable livelihoods while continuing protection for those genuinely requiring welfare.
Then comes the figure that turns an interesting social experiment into an important public-interest story.
The 2026 Budget allocated Rs.25 billion to Prajashakthi. Of that, Rs.23 billion is intended for projects at district level, with another Rs.2 billion earmarked for medium-scale national projects, training and research.
The Government has already launched its “A Thousand Projects in a Thousand Villages” initiative, under which 1,000 projects were scheduled to begin simultaneously around the country. Funds have been released to districts and projects are moving through the implementation machinery.
That means substantial amounts of public money are now travelling from the Treasury through different levels of government and ultimately into thousands of relatively small community projects.
And that is where NewsLine becomes interested.
Who decides which projects receive money? Who selects the members of the Community Development Councils? How are competing proposals assessed, and what safeguards prevent political influence, official favouritism or contractor influence from determining which village receives what?
There is another question once a project is approved. Who chooses the contractor, supplier or organisation that ultimately receives the public money, and can an ordinary citizen easily discover how much was paid, to whom and for what?
None of those questions suggests that something improper has happened. They are precisely the questions that should be asked before anything improper has the opportunity to happen.
Interestingly, the Government’s own architecture for Prajashakthi recognises the need for scrutiny. The programme envisages project identification, planning, monitoring and progress reviews across ministries, Provincial Councils, District and Divisional Secretariats, while specifically providing for community participation and social auditing.
Cabinet has also approved the drafting of legislation intended to give the Prajashakthi implementation mechanism statutory backing. If Parliament is eventually being asked to give this structure legal authority, both Parliament and the public have every reason to know precisely how the money flowing through it is being handled.
NewsLine therefore begins today what will be an continuing examination of Prajashakthi. We do so not because poverty alleviation should be opposed, but because a programme capable of genuinely improving livelihoods, creating sustainable village businesses and moving families permanently away from poverty deserves both support and rigorous scrutiny.
Success cannot be measured simply by how many projects were announced, how many ceremonies were held or even how many billions were “allocated”. The real measure comes afterwards: what was built, what did it cost, who received the money, who benefited and whether the project still works a year later.
We intend to establish how the Rs.23 billion district allocation was divided among Sri Lanka’s 25 districts, which projects received funding, who proposed them, how they were evaluated and, wherever possible, who received the contracts or payments.
Then comes the most important question of all: did those projects actually improve people’s lives?
There is an enormous difference between Rs.25 billion allocated to eradicate poverty and Rs.25 billion successfully used to eradicate poverty.
Prajashakthi could become an important experiment in genuinely community-driven development. It could equally become another enormous government programme in which thousands of relatively small allocations make the overall expenditure extraordinarily difficult for citizens to follow.
The difference will be transparency.
The Government says Prajashakthi belongs to the community. The community should therefore be able to see every rupee spent in its name.
Be that as it may, NewsLine intends to follow those rupees – all Rs.25 billion of them.
