Lahiru Weerasekera, secretary of Youth for Change, said that instead of providing solutions to unemployment, the ministers of the government are preparing to ban the job of tricycle drivers for those under forty years of age without paying attention to any survey or statistics. He also emphasized that imposing an age limit to join as three-wheeler drivers is a violation of fundamental rights.
He also mentioned that the government, which believes that raising the age is the solution to everything, is preparing to raise the age of becoming a tricycle driver to forty just as it is preparing to extend the retirement period of judges by bringing the twenty-second constitutional amendment.
He said that there are fourteen thousand hospital assistant vacancies but the government is not taking steps to fill them and is trying to impose restrictions on three-wheeler drivers. He said that the government believes that when three-wheelers are eliminated, everything will be solved.
Lahiru Weerasekera said that according to the policy statement of the government, a job bank will be established to eliminate unemployment, but such has not been established. Having said this, he questioned what is the government’s plan to provide jobs for the three-wheeler drivers by imposing a limit on the age of the three-wheeler drivers.
Lahiru Weerasekera who commented further said:
“The government’s attitude towards the youth is clear from the stories of the Deputy Minister Nalin Heve about those who ride three-wheelers. The Deputy Minister thinks that as soon as they get out of school, the youth take a three-wheeler and come on the road. The Deputy Minister says that there are one hundred thousand three-wheelers. The one hundred thousand three-wheelers are three-wheelers registered in the Department of Motor Vehicles. There are so many young people in this age range. There are no statistics that there are three-wheel drivers. People who are doing standard jobs in the society use an app on their way home and earn money by running a three-wheeler with their car or bicycle.
People who work in tricycles, young people who go on motorcycles and provide services through the app are asking for a lot of people. Three-wheeler associations have been asking for regulation of these apps for a long time. But the government has not implemented any program for them.
What the Deputy Minister says cannot be made a reality on earth. These people say to abandon the three-wheeler and choose another one instead of creating a productive economy. What is the government’s program to create jobs? Without implementing them, the Deputy Minister is trying to impose an age limit for three-wheelers.
When the professional rights of working young people are lost, the government does not talk about it, but talks about those who ride threewheels. The government that allows employers to loot the money of the working people’s employees’ trust fund and employees’ provident fund, should come down from the threeville for the youth.
These things will increase the number of unemployed youth.”