Development challenges and potentials in the periphery of a rapidly developing core region of Sri Lanka: A case study from the Pathigoda Grama Niladhari Division (GND) of Gampaha District

Abstract

The purpose of a country’s national development is to take necessary measures to reduce regional development disparities within the core-periphery structure, even in districts located within rapidly developing core regions, such as the Western Province of Sri Lanka. The present study investigated whether there is a development gap between the core and the peripheral areas of the Western Province. Accordingly, the main objective of the study was to discover the development gap between the core and periphery of the relatively developed Western Province and to find out what are the development challenges in the rural periphery of a rapidly developing district. For this, the Pathigoda Grama Niladhari Division (GND) of the Divulapitiya Divisional Secretary’s Division (DSD) located at the periphery of Gampaha District, which is one of the three districts of the Western Province of Sri Lanka was selected. Under the deductive approach and mixed method, a random sampling method was applied to collect primary data. The samples were collected from 30 households in Pathigoda GND. Spatial data was analyzed and maps were developed by ArcGIS software. Descriptive and narrative methods were applied to analyze the qualitative data where descriptive analysis included percentage and mean score measures, simple regression, and correlation coefficients using SPSS software. This research verified that there are drastic differences between the center and peripheral areas of the Western core area of Sri Lanka in terms of key development related parameters and environmental issues by taking the Pathigoda GND as an example. The peripheral areas of the Gampaha district, a highly developed district and the most populous district of Sri Lanka are highly backward, and communities are marginalized due to the exclusion of the development process in the core. Lower education levels, drug addiction people, and early adolescent marriages, chronic and absolute poverty, are common issues among people in the periphery Engaging in micro-level work and obtaining micro-finance loans can be identified as the economic challenges. The entire development process of the periphery has been drastically politicized. The major environmental issues are deforestation, lack of safe drinking water, and illegal environmental activities. Lack of infrastructure and historical background in the periphery has resulted this outcome. Accordingly, the peripheral development processes should be linked with the core's development process and the forward and backward linkages of the industries should be strengthened with the periphery. Moreover, human resource development in the studied peripheral region is needed.