Traditional Pongal Festival– 2020

Hindus across Sri Lanka celebrated Thai Pongal, a Hindu harvest festival dedicated to the Sun God. The festival is a public holiday in our country. The Hindus among them are celebrating the “Pongal” harvest festival, popularly known as Thai Pongal, celebrated in the first four days of the month of Thai in the Tamil-Hindu calendar.

Our culture has been forgotten for various reasons by many years. But now we have a responsibility to restore them and give them back to our society. We have concluded this Pongal festival with a noble purpose. It is noteworthy that many of the village organizations have worked closely to conduct this event successfully.

That is why Eastern- University Alumni Association of Sri Lanka (EUAAS) organized a Regional Pongal Festival with collaboration of Eastern Hindu Religious and Social Development Association (EHRSDA) in Thikkodai Village, Batticaloa on 19th January 20, 2020.  

This Festival was chaired by me represented from Eastern- University Alumni Association of Sri Lanka. The Chief Guests were S.Navaneethan, PROVINCIAL DIRECTOR at Ministry of Education, Eastern Province and Divisional Secretariat Porativu Pattu, Batticaloa,  T.Thusyanthan, President EHRSDA and Mrs Geerthi Jayawardana, District In charge, Ranaviru Housing scheme, Ampara.

The traditional walk started from the Ganesha Maha Vidyalaya, Thikkodi to commemorate the heritage of the Tamils and the farmers. After that, the Pongal Celebration commenced following the Pooja events and ended with a number of stage programs.

I said that ‘Today the heroes of the event are our farmers and we have to celebrate them. But today they are living in poverty and being very poor condition. The majority of Batticaloa’s residents are engaged in agriculture – especially paddy farming. Taken as a whole, 58% of workers are employed in the agriculture and fisheries sector. Adverse weather and climatic changes, capital shortages, high cost of inputs, access to credit difficulties, and poor quality of output are affecting agricultural productivity in Batticaloa, and impacting on the incomes of the farmers in Batticaloa. Because of it majority of these workers are poor due to low product and incomes from employment. So we will be grateful to them and my humble appeal is that we are all about recovering the farmers and improving them in near future.