Rubawathy Ketheeswaran Has bagged Exemplary Women Leadership Award

Rubawathy Ketheeswaran Has bagged Exemplary Women Leadership Award

• December 06, 2023

I am Rubawathy Ketheeswaran, a seasoned district secretary with an extensive and illustrious career spanning over three decades. For the past 32 years as an SLAS officer, I have dedicated my professional life to serve our nation through unwavering commitment, expertise, and a steadfast dedication for upholding the principles of our government and serve citizens of our nation.

“A woman in any form shall be celebrated and honored, be it, a sister or a wife or any other form”. It is a great honor to have been awarded for being a woman who is to be appreciated in the society.

This is a timely and timeless moment and my heartfelt thanks to WOMEN icon team for bestowing this honor on me. I am very much thrilled to receive this award as it is an internationally recognized award.

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude from my bottom of heart to the team of WOMEN icon powered by TIMES WOMEN and World Women International council to honor me.

Background and Education

I would like to add little bit of me in this juncture. I was born and brought up in Kilinochchi which is situated in Northern part of Sri Lanka. Our family has seven members, father, mother, three brothers and one sister. Father and my elder brother passed away. I married and have a daughter. I was brought up from a poor family. My only belief was in education. As a result I studied hard and entered university. I am graduated as B.Sc graduate in University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka on 1989.

My primary education was started in Kilinochchi Hindu Maha Vidyalayam and St.Therasa’s Maha Vidyalayam. My secondary education was in Kilinochchi Hindu Maha Vidyalayam, Velanai Central College and Kilinochchi Central College.

Career Overview

After my graduation, I had sat for the Sri Lanka Administrative Service open competitive examination and entered into Sri Lanka Administrative Service in 1991. I have served several departments. I worked in the central government as Assistant Divisional Secretary/ Assistant Government Agent and the provincial administration as an Assistant Secretary, Provincial Public Service Commission, Training officer in Management Development Training Unit, Trincomalee, Assistant Commissioner of cooperative Development in Batticaloa, Eastern Province. Then, worked as Assistant District Secretary, Additional District Secretary and Acting District Secretary in Batticaloa.

Then, I got the position as District Secretary in Kilinochchi on 2009 and Mullaitivu on 2015 again in Kilinochchi on 2020. In between I have completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Public Administration in University of Colombo and M.A in Sociology in Kamarajar University (India) through distance education.

Professional Achievements

It is my privilege to serve as a district secretary in Kilinochchi as well as in Mullaitivu. I have been the only woman serving as District Secretary for fourteen years continuously in these districts and more than eight years in Kilinochchi in two terms and more than five years in Mullaitivu district. Mainly these districts were affected due to the conflict and the people of these districts displaced totally from their original places and moved to another safer district, Vavuniya and came back for resettlement.

That time people had no any facilities at their original places as they lost their assets and their valuable documents. Hence, government had to cater their needs. I took over the district in this juncture and all burdens were on my shoulder to provide essential service to the resettled population. Government and Non-Government organizations extended their support to this population. We had to provide dry rations, temporary shelters, livelihood support etc. in the beginning.

In the meantime, I had to look after the development activities such as school development, housing construction, road and other infra-structure activities in a crash programme.

Further, the needs of the public were to be addressed as they lost their important documents such as land documents, birth certificates, National Identity Cards etc. Mobile services were conducted with the help of the relevant department to sort out the people’s problem.

During the resettlement, there were lot of shortcomings as it was the transitional period of development. There were no electricity facilities for all the population, many infrastructure were not in good shape to restart their day to day activities.

Gradually most of the damaged infrastructures have been reconstructed and lot of new development projects also have been constructed in the district. The life of the people have been normalized although there are some kind of issues are to be rectified. I am proudly say that I am also partner of this intervention and development.

I had been awarded with National “Leadership Award” by the Ministry of Disaster Management for contributing to the disaster management activities in the year 2014. Further my institution has achieved first place for the National Productivity Award with my leadership on 2020. National award received from Sri Lanka Social Security Board for first on 2022 and third on 2023.

My Organization

My organization is a government institution. In Sri Lanka, there are twenty five districts. Every district is administered by a Senior Administrative Service Officer (SLAS). The institution is named as District Secretariat and the head of the institution is District Secretary. My present institution is situated in Kilinochchi district which is affected by the conflict and now erected with developing interventions with the help of the government.

The vision of the organization is “providing effective services to the public through new modernized administration” and the mission is “According to the policy of the state, upgrade the government and socio-cultural values of the district using the available resources in an effective manner through integration”.

To achieve the vision and mission, there are resources provided by the government such as human resources, physical resources and financial resources

Under the district administration, there are divisional secretariats at peripheral level and “Grama Niladhari” office at village level. All these institutions are governed by the Ministry of Public Administration at National level.

Our institution is providing services to the public in various matters such as issuing birth certificate, death certificate and marriage certificate, issuing land documents for the land owner, providing services to the vulnerable groups such as Disable, women headed families, children etc. Not only this implementing development activities, coordinating other departments at district level, monitoring and coordinating the Non-Governmental Organization and UN-Organization at District level, Environmental protection, and disaster management activities are also proceeded by the institution.

According to government policy, all these implementation are to be done at district level by the District Secretaries. The present government and district secretaries’ priorities areas are to be highlighted in present and future.

• Food Security
• Income Generation
• Livelihood development
• Promoting Investment opportunity through PPP model
• Creating techno crops to cater International Labor market
• Enhancing renewable share in the energy mix
• Introducing micro to small entrepreneurship based on regional specific product the specific basis

Looking Ahead

As I reflect on the past 32 years of public service, I am filled with gratitude for the opportunities to contribute to our nation.

Thank you for allowing me to share a glimpse of my journey as a district secretary. I am proud to have dedicated my career to the service of our great nation and am eager to continue to serve public.