I am happy to see this kind of studies. But I do not agree " if there is a demand there is a supply" with regard to Kasippu. We need strong action from law (specially from police) to stop the production. If no production of "Kasippu" how can people drink? Main point is these producers are having links to the police or politicians. Some times police punish for innocent people who drink or sell just to survive,but not the main producers of "kasippu". We need to change these poor people's attitudes to get rid of this situation while supporting them to start another source of income. Awareness programs, health programs should be implemented to support the people who addicted to drink. Children of these families need to be treated carefully to change their backward mentality. Women of these families can be empowered to adjust new economic situations. However this "Kasippu eradication from villages" is a huge task which need to be very carefully design. All the members of the society have a responsibility to contribute for this. I wish all the success to do this.

i think it is important to prove your writing with relevant data. i can not comment on this because you have not provided any data. i believe it is a responsibility of a responsible citizen to help the law or the Police to stop if these things are happening around our vicinities. at least we can be happy that we did our part and to give relevant solutions to this problem after that will be the responsibility of the relevant authorities i believe. in which areas you think that this thing is happening mostly? And even about this ' pagawa' i think there are places for us to go and complain. Shall we do our part here if we know that these things are really happening ?

I agree with your comments. But unfortunately I am not having information to prove these things at the moment as I am out of the country. Hope I will be help this soon after my arrival. I believe cepa can do more research on child poverty ,women empowerment sort of studies regarding this specific segment of people and provide recommendation to relevant authorities to implement. Also cepa can organize awareness program for general public on this regard and explain their responsibilities to avoid this social epidemic.

This is a habit and has very long history. This kind of alcohol we can see everywhere in the world and consume by rich and poor for may be fun, may be addiction, may be different reasons. We call this is illegal but it is very famous every town, village and even in capital cities. What we need to do here is formalize the industry with some acceptable standards and introduce laws and regulations on selling, distribution, production and consumption.

"කසිප්පු" යන වදන සමග දරිද්‍රතාවය ඉතා තදින් සම්බන්ධ වේ. "මත්පැන්" යන වදන සමග දරිද්‍රතාවය සම්බන්ධ වන්නේ ඊට වඩා තරමක් අඩුවෙනි. 'කසිප්පු' යනු නීති විරෝධී මත්පැන් වන අතර 'අති‍විශේෂ අරක්කු' වන විට නීත්‍යානුකූල මත්පැන් වේ. කසිප්පුවල ශරීරයට වඩා හානිකර වන ද්‍රව්‍ය, විස විය හැකි ද්‍රව්‍ය අඩංගු වන අතර 'අති‍විශේෂ අරක්කු'ද ශරීරයට හිතකර යැයි කිසිවකු පිළි ගන්නේ ද නැත. සාමාන්‍යයෙන් හොඳින් මුදල් අතේ ගැවසෙන කෙනෙක් කසිප්පු පානයට යොමු වෙනවාට වඩා විදේශයෙන් ආනයනය කරන ලද මත්පැන් භාවිතයට යොමු වීමට ඉඩකඩ වැඩිය. කසිප්පු සම්බන්ධව ඉල්ලුමට සැපයුම යන අර්ථකතනය මෙන්ම, කසිප්පු සම්බන්ධව කෙනෙකුගේ මිලදී ගැනීමේ හැකියාව මත පදනම් වූ අර්ථකතනයක් ද සලකා බැලීම වටී. ඒ මත මත්පැන් බීම නීත්‍යානුකූල හෝ නීත්‍යානුකූල නොවීම සිදුවිය හැකිය. නීතියට හැම දෙයක්ම කළ නොහැකිය. කසිප්පු පරිභෝජනය සමාජ ප්‍රශ්නයක් වනවා සේම අල්ලස, දූෂණය, දරිද්‍රතාවය,සමාජ සේවා,සෞඛ්‍ය සේවා ඇති ප්‍රවේශය සීමා වීම යන මේවා ද සමාජ ප්‍රශ්න වේ. එකක් අනිකට සම්බන්ධය. නීතියට නීතිය තුළ ඇති අල්ලස, දූෂණ, වංචා නැවැත්වීමේ හැකියාවක්වත් නොමැත.එබැවිනි, වෙනත් විදියේ මැදිහත්වීම් අවශ්‍ය වන්නේ. පර්යේෂණ දත්ත හරහා රටට, රටේ නායකයන්ට, නීති සම්පාදකයන්ට මේ සම්බන්ධ පිළිගත හැකි තොරතුරු ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට හැකිවනු ඇත. ඒ හරහා සැබවින්ම කසිප්පු ද වැඩිපුර හානිකර? මත්පැන් ද හානිකර? යන්නට පිළිතුරු සෙවිය හැකි වනු ඇත. නීත්‍යානුකූල මත්පැන්වල මිල පහළ දැමිම එක් අතකින් කසිප්පු පානය අඩු කරනු ඇති සේම, මත්පැන් පානය ඉහළ යාමට ද රජයේ බදු ආදායම පහළ බැසීමට ද හේතුවක් වනු ඇත.එසේම ‍මාර්ග අනතුරු ප්‍රමාණය කෙරේද, ර‍ජයේ සෞඛ්‍ය වියදම් කෙරේද කිසියම් බලපෑමක් කරනු ඇත. කරුණු කෙසේ නමුත් "මතින් තොර රටක් - මතට 100% තිතක්" තබන ප්‍රතිපත්තියකට යාමට ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට හැකියාවක් ලැබෙන්නේ නැත. පර්යේෂණ හරහා සත්‍යතත්වය වටහා දිය හැකි අතර එම පැහැදිලිකිරීම් පදනම් කරගෙන ජනහිතකාමී රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්ති සම්පාදනය කළ හැකිය. නමුත් අපි තවත් දෙයක් කල්පනා කළ යුතුය. විදේශ ආධාර පදනම් කරගත් තල්ලු නොලැබෙන්නේ නම් පර්යේෂණ දත්ත පදනම් කරගෙන රාජ්‍ය ප්‍රතිපත්ති සම්පාදනයක් අපේ රටේ සිදු නොවන බව මම විශ්වාස කරමි. අනික් අතට සිදුවන පර්යේෂණයන්හි සීමාවන්/බාධාවන් ද අපි තේරුම් ගෙන පර්යේෂණ සොයා ගැනීම් යනු පරම සත්‍යය නොව, සත්‍යයට ආසන්න යමක් බව අපි තේරැම් ගතයුතුය

I see the topic of this discussion as “Kasippu and the Poor in village”, but the body of the writing talks more about the impact of Kasippu on the households generally and so on. And then at the end writer asks questions on how to stop producing kasippu and many other factors which are preventing or obstructing the process of kasippu production. As far as I see Kasippu and the Poor had been two stand alone questions here. Hence the flow of the blog article is vague. The only relationship writer had made between kasippu and the poor in village is that the majority of kasippu consumers are from poor families. The writer could have given more emphasis of this issue on the poor. Kasippu comes as the only option as a liquor for the poor as it is cheaper than other branded liquors. Hence among kasippu consumers, the majority are from poor families. Most of them are addict to it for some reason. kasippu consumption triggers poverty, because the amount they spent daily on kasippu is a large percentage of their daily income since they earn a low salary as most of them are wage laborers. Kasippu could trigger poverty in monetary term and also in multidimensional term (employment, empowerment, physical safety, well-being and so on). kasippu could have impact on creating chronic poverty. How kasippu creates lots of problems to the consumers, households and also to the society is a different problem. Hence this blog article has touched few wide issues i.e. “Kasippu and the poor” and “The importance of eliminating kasippu from the society”. Finally it raises the issues on eliminating kasippu from the society. It would have been good to focus one of these areas, so that it could have created a good flow of discussion.

Yes, of course, as Sandika noted we need to give some data to back up the facts/arguments given in the main write-up. The data should not be necessarily quantitative, but qualitative as well. If you do a proper literature review, you would be able to concrete this argument with numbers and with some more facts, but I guess most of the studies/research have been done on the broad topic of “Poverty and Alcohol”. And also according to my knowledge on readings, alcohol (mostly Kasippu) had been one of the major problems causing poverty in estate sector than in any other sector. There is no doubt that Kasippu had been creating a huge social cost as well as monetary cost for Sri Lanka over the decades. As far as I know, kasippu suppliers do this business, not because they do not know anything else as a mean of income but as a way of easy and high profit making source. We clearly know that there had been lots of efforts done in relation to eliminate kasippu from Sri Lankan society, but failed. Hence that obstructing factors need to be addressed now. I appreciate Damith’s comment and suggest portal team to drag lecturer Ms. Sumadhi Rangika Samaraweera from the University of Sabaragamuwa in to this discussion as her dissertation for the Bachelor’s degree is on “Poverty and Alcohol”.

since i"m agree for the statement of MR,Bandara but i want to tell you very frankly this we can implement those health program and other things but we need to stop entertain all the things, as i aware this thing will sustains when the election and other requirement come out from political indivijuels because thees people are funding them to careen out there political campaign i have seen many areas like that . but i hope new jenaration have diferent perception on this thees might not go to Kasippu but imported stuff in this point we can consider Mr. Bandara what had justified. within the community.