Starter Kit. Idea 433 of 500. Cluster 22
Boat-taxi services on the lagoons and the reservoirs
The mechanism, from the book
The village cannot get a box to the container port. The gap is small firms, not big ones.
The first step
Sit at the jetty or the edge of one lagoon or reservoir for a day and count who crosses, who waits and who goes the long way round by road. Ask a fisher with a sound boat whether they would run crossings at set times for a fare, and ask a nearby hotel whether its guests would ride for sightseeing. The proof is a list of regular passengers and one hotel referral.
- Who pays first
- Residents who go the long way round by road every day, and hotel guests who want to see the water, both paying a fixed fare.
- What leaves today
- Idle boats and long road detours waste time and fuel; a boat-taxi turns water the district already has into a service that earns.
Ask first
- Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Ask whether a fishing boat may carry paying passengers, and what safety gear it needs.
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask who controls the jetty and whether a regular crossing may use it.
Check before you spend
Confirm that the boat may carry paying passengers, the number it can safely take, life jackets for every seat, and insurance for passengers.
Find out these three numbers
- How many people cross or go the long way round each day?
- What would a passenger pay for one crossing?
- What does a boatman need to earn to run set times?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.