Integrated Facility Planning Approach for Sustainable Development in North and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka

Abstract

North and Eastern provinces are comparatively least developed areas in Sri Lanka due to three decades war. However there are number of positive and negative impacts to the natural resources and the environment of this region. Since most parts of this region were inaccessible for many years, not a single industry moved to this region during the war period. Even the industries which were established prior to war had to shut down or even to abandon. War directly affected many lucrative industries such as tourism. However, soon after this region was cleared, many groups stepped into these regions with good intentions to improve the livelihood of war affected community without wasting time. But this may further deteriorate already damaged environment and society if new industries are vigilantly analysed before implementing. There are many traits to be considered when putting up an industry or facility any in any region staring with availability of bare land, raw materials for specific industries, infrastructure, closeness to community etc. However, it can be seen that many instances where one or few traits have been considered without much analysis when implementing new industries in this country as a whole. Conversely, there are already well established analytical techniques to select best locations for new facilities to start from, general facilities such as schools, farms, markets, towns, manufacturing plants, etc. Even there are ways to accommodate political, social and environmental issues when selecting facility locations. Presently, there is no well established methodology to select the type and scale of industries, which suit and fit the area. Therefore in this research an integrated facility selection methodology which takes into account sustainability aspects, when selecting and designing the new facility have been proposed as a multiple variable optimisation problem. A case study was done in two districts of this region with proposed approach and it reveals that proposed approach brings many relevant issues to the notice and the scalability of the industry to the decision makers.