Robert Knox perhaps made a historical error. He thought Colombo was named after a mango tree that bore no fruits; hence, Kola+Amba=Kolamba. Maybe it was what people believed in the late Dutch period. Still, Colombo got its name long before. The name first appeared in Portuguese period documents. It’s not difficult to guess how this happened.
In Portuguese, similarly spelt is the name of a celebrated explorer who discovered new land just a few years before the birth of the Asian city. Given the European habit of identifying new places with familiar names (Cities called Vasco da Gama are in India and Brazil), it can be assumed they named the newly invaded land after ‘Cristóvão de Colombo’ (‘Christopher Columbus’ in English).
Colombo, arguably the only city – in modern terms – in Sri Lanka, has undergone several development phases. Portuguese built Colombo Fort for military and administrative purposes. Pettah (‘Pita Kotuwa’ or Outer Fort) was the residential and commercial space. Dutch augmented this division. They also added new features of their own like a canal network (connecting Beira Lake) and planned streets. Even then, most places we now consider ‘Colombo city’ remained rustic. It was the British, who occupied Ceylon for nearly 150 years, that really built Colombo city. The Fort, which had outlived its purpose then, was demolished.
Public open spaces in the form of Victoria Park (later Viharamahadevi Park), Galle Face Green, golf courses and cricket grounds were added. Colombo Port activities grew. That changed population patterns, as a rural exodus came to the city for work. Swarms of bullock carts were engaged in commercial transport, to be partially replaced by trains after their introduction in the late 19th century. The South of Colombo has seen a sudden rise in population with Colpetty, Bambalapitiya and Wellawatta turning into residential areas. Cinnamon Gardens, an agriculture land earlier, gradually became the locale of an elite class. Serious planning in Colombo is only a century old. Sir Patrick Geddes made the first attempt in 1921. He wanted to make Colombo the ‘Garden City of the East’.
As a result, Colombo got Town Hall, Duplication Road and Marine Drive (to ease traffic along Galle Road). Then Clifford Holiday came in 1940, on the invitation of Colombo Municipal Council, to introduce zonal administration. By the time of,Independence, we have photographic evidence that Colombo, was a tiny place not burdened with severe problems confronting,other South Asian city administrators. In cities like Madras,Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Lahore and Karachi, they managed populations of several million each.
Colombo’s population was only about 300,000 by the time the British left. Development work continued in the post-48 era, but work during two specific periods made Colombo what it is today. The first phase was from the late 1970s to early 80s. Colombo received a new face as many administrative bodies were gradually moved to Sri Jayewardenepura, the newly created administrative capital a few kilometres away.
[pullquote]A MODERN CITY IS DEFINED BY ITS INFRASTRUCTURE, AND GOVERNED BY LAWS[/pullquote]
Residential flats were introduced to partially replace some low-income housing. Water supply and drainage systems were expanded for the first time after the British occupation. A few high rises like the Bank of Ceylon tower were constructed. Even with massive damage in July ’83, Colombo was gradually transforming to a place for convenient living. Colombo later underwent another more remarkable transformation a few decades later with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa taking charge, in a somewhat informal arrangement.
Old Colombo slowly faded, giving way to a modern, more beautiful, more elegant and cleaner one. Old buildings, left to decay and be demolished one day, were given a second life, sometimes even as shopping malls.Dirty canals were cleaned. Pavements were redone with new bricks and foliage.
By the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2013, Colombo has almost shed its former murkiness. Perhaps that success made the next government more ambitious. A new ministry for ‘Megapolis Development’ has been created. This gave development responsibility of the commercial capital to at least two significant bodies. Not to mention so many other ministries (from Education to Health), departments (from Railways to Police) and boards trying to make their own contribution. Then there was Western Provincial Council that did have a mandate for Colombo city as the district included about one-third of its constituency.
Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), the largest local authority in Sri Lanka and one of the oldest in South Asia, has a history that goes back to 1865. Now, it has grown into a significantly large institute addressing requirements of a resident population of more than 500,000 and the same number of daily visitors. The total number of properties that comes within its 37 square km has exceeded 150,000, with two-thirds being residential. The CMC’s annual budget is Rs17 billion. That is on par with the yearly income of the Ceylon Electricity Board. The CMC is more like a provincial government. It can easily manage the administrative tasks of Colombo. The issue isn’t limited to multiple organisations duplicating and muddling tasks and responsibilities.
These authorities define Colombo cities on their own terms. For the CMC, it is just 37 square kilometres. What happens outside it is not their business. The Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development sees a different city with different boundaries. They include the municipalities of Dehiwala and Mount Lavinia; urban councils of Boralesgamuwa, Kolonnawa, Peliyagoda; and Wattala-Mabole in the range of ‘Colombo Commercial city’. Local authorities like the Kaduwala and Kotte municipalities too could have been included had they not have been parts of ‘Capital city’ – i.e. Sri Jayawardenapura.
Nobody knows for sure what we refer to as ‘Colombo city’. Is this a problem? Yes, this is not how modern cities are defined and governed. A modern city is defined by its infrastructure. They generally have laws and other systems to manage housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land useand communication.
Centralised control simplifies this administration. In the arrangement we term ‘smart city,’ this centralised management is essential. Otherwise, they would create information silos – an insular management system in which one information system or subsystem is incapable of reciprocal operation with related others. Colombo deserves to be treated better. It is the economic centre of the island, and accounts for most of the country’s GDP. It must be taken out of the whole for special treatment.
That can be done only with a Colombo-specific central administration. Responsibilities and scope of the present CMC should be widened. The city’s borders should be moved, making it large enough to cover all areas now called ‘semi urban’. The city should have a larger budget – both capital and recurrent. Other small governing bodies should come within city administration. Such arrangements are nothing new; it is how cities are governed worldwide. Just because we have only one that can be termed a city in the true sense, should we deprive it of the right administrative structure? I guess we shouldn’t.