Product Description

The Punyagrama web portal maintains a religious, social and economical information management system with the capability to include data on more than 20,000 religious places in Sri Lanka. Contributing organisations benefit by being able to develop their websites and expand their products and services. The hope is also that the site information will be useful for school children and national and international tourists.

At present all the services are provided free of charge to the 2000 religious organization by the Ministry of Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs.  The intention is to add 8000 more websites to the web portal by the end of year 2014.

Jurors’ Evaluation

The religious institutions in this country and their traditions are an integral part of Sri Lanka’s multifaceted and extremely rich cultural heritage. Often, detailed information about a particular site is not readily available and is known only to the people of that particular locality. Right now, there is not even a complete listing of all the religious organizations in the country. Within this context, the attempt by The Ministry to provide and facilitate a platform to start documenting the information is a timely endeavor. This site works as an information-sharing platform and provide facilities for religious institutions to self-register their basic information. In the long run this site can be a one-stop shop for information about a particular place of worship, even if it is located in a remote area of the country.