Abstract:
Local government is defined as the administration of a particular county or district, with representatives
elected by those who live there. The purpose of a local government is to manage the welfare needs of
the inhabitants of a particular locality under the jurisdiction of the respective local government body.
The legislation of the local government system of Sri Lanka is composed mainly of the Municipal
Council Ordinance, the Urban Council Ordinance and the Pradeshiya Sabha Act which have been passed
by the national state assembly at the parliament in consideration of the welfare of the entire population
of the state. Yet when it comes to practical governance, the conditions laid down in the particular
ordinances and acts do not have their impact on the activities concerned. As a result, the development
projects and services implemented by the local government bodies are not evenly distributed within the
geographical areas concerned. According to the survey made under this study, the function of the local
government body of the Weligepola Pradeshiya Sabha is a classic example of this discrepancy. It was
understood during the survey that the main reason for this situation is the politicisation of the local
government administration that hinders equal treatment of all the Gramasewa Divisions under it.
Therefore, this paper proposes that the governance of the local government bodies need to be streamlined
in accordance with the relevant legislations in the state. The methodology for this research was based
on both primary and secondary data. SPSS 17 was used to analyse the data. The sample was collected
from the three villages in the Opanayake Divisional secretariat namely Lendara, Opanayake and
Kahakoratuwa, in accordance with the
Snowball sampling method. Accordingly, 20 families were randomly selected from
