Starter Kit. Idea 495 of 500. Cluster 27

A returnee service for the north and the east: permits, the tax office and the school, in one visit

Back to the idea

Written for this site as a starting point, not from the book. Rules and fees change: ask the bodies named below before you spend money.

The mechanism, from the book

The land, the lagoons and the savings of families abroad are waiting. What comes first is the small business.

The first step

List every office a returning family in the north or east must visit in its first month: land, permits, tax and schools. Visit each one yourself, noting the documents, the queues and the opening hours, and turn it into a single checklist. Then offer, through a Sri Lankan association abroad, to walk 3 families through it for a fee. Families paying is the service.

Who pays first
A Sri Lankan family abroad reclaiming land or a house in the north, who would pay one person to handle the offices in one visit rather than several trips.
What leaves today
Money and skills held by Sri Lankans abroad who want to come home stall at the first office, and the missing proof is that return can be done in one visit.

Ask first

  • the Divisional Secretariat. Ask which offices a returning family must visit, and what each needs.
  • Inland Revenue Department. Ask what a returning family must register for tax in its first months.

Check before you spend

Confirm that you only guide and prepare, never act as an official, that families' documents are kept safe, and that every fee is agreed first.

Find out these three numbers

  1. How many returning families come to the area each year?
  2. What would a family pay for one guided visit?
  3. How many days does the first month of paperwork take now?

A comparison from the book

Going first. Chapter Eight

"That is what it costs to go first, and that is what it buys for everyone behind you."

Walk the offices once yourself, write it all down, and every family after you saves the cost.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

WITH500BUSINESS IDEASTO STARTTOMORROW

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.