Former Deputy Minister of Higher Education A.M.R.B. Attanayake has died, Hiru News reports.

Attanayake entered Parliament under the J.R. Jayewardene administration representing the Ududumbara electorate in the Kandy District, and Hiru records that he rendered notable service to the development of the higher education sector during his tenure as deputy minister.

The parliamentary record

The Sri Lankan Parliament’s own record of his service lists him as Attanayake Mudiyanselage Rambanda Attanayake of the United National Party, and confirms the ministerial role and its span: Deputy Minister of Higher Education from 14 February 1980 to 9 January 1989.

He sat in the Second National State Assembly from 21 July 1977 to 7 September 1978, and then in the First Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka from 7 September 1978 to 20 December 1988 — a total of eleven years, four months and twenty-nine days.

That places his entire parliamentary career inside the Jayewardene presidency, and his deputy ministership across almost the whole of it. He held the higher education brief through the period in which the 1978 constitution was implemented and the university system was reorganised under the University Grants Commission structure that still governs it.

The parliamentary record renders his initials as A.M.R.; Hiru gives A.M.R.B., the additional letter presumably taken from Rambanda. He should not be confused with Tissa Attanayake, the later UNP general secretary, who is a separate and much more recent figure.

Funeral arrangements

His remains lie in state at a private funeral parlour on Colombo Road, Eriyagama, Peradeniya, from 2 p.m. on Thursday 17 September until 2 p.m. on Saturday 19 September.

Final rites are scheduled for Mahaiyawa General Cemetery on Saturday the 19th at 4 p.m.

Not reported

Hiru does not give his age, the date or cause of death, or the names of surviving family. It does not say how many terms he served or give the margins by which he held Ududumbara, and it does not specify which measures in the higher education sector he was responsible for.

No other verified newsroom had carried the death at the time of writing.