Nawagattegama village tanks under irrigation project in danger of destruction
Text and pix by Hiran Priyankara Jayasinghe
Farmers in Nawagattegama in the Puttalam District are up in arms over what they allege has been the destruction of a number of irrigation tanks in the area, under the Village and Tank Reawakening Programme of the Sri Lanka Government.
Farmers charge that mismanagement of funds allocated to the programme and ad hoc repairs carried out by authorities has led to the collapse of the entire network of village tanks.
The programme inaugurated in 2019, targetted setting up a new water management scheme in Nawagattegama, in the aftermath of former President Maithripala Sirisena's participation at the Climate Summit held in Africa.
The project to set up a new water management scheme in seven districts was launched with an initial grant of US$ 38.8 million in an effort to face challenges posed by climate change. While the UNDP undertook the Technical Feasibility Report, the Government of Sri Lanka allocated Rs2,450 million for the project.
Several NGOs too were involved in the project, but state institutions in the area were hardly consulted during project implementation.
The farmers claim they were kept in the dark for seven years on the monetary allocations made for upliftment of the farming community.
According to Indika Rajapakse of Piyasumanagama - President of the Farmers' Organisation in the village - they were initially briefed that the defunct Ellanga Irrigation Scheme would be restarted under the project and water distributed to other tanks in the area. "We were informed that unlike in the past water from the tanks would not stagnate."
However, despite the heavy expenditure, he said, none of the targets were met. "You could see heaps of earth piled in the canal network. This is hindering the flow of water to the tanks," he claimed.
R H M Chamara Prasad from Weerawewa added that the work undertaken did not appear to follow any particular plan. "On several occassions, I have pointed out short-comings and corrupt practices to officials. But they did not take notice. I have informed them that contractors were using low-quality steel in the concrete, yet the officials paid no heed to our warnings. Now leaks have developed in the system."
G L M Tikiri Banda from Mahameddawa, said funding has been unprecedented. "I'm upset no standards have been applied in this project."
Authorities in charge of the project did not seem too concerned, merely saying they had noted the complaints made by farmers.
For instance, Mr Kamal Wijeratne, Regional Engineer of the Irrigation Department said when complaints had been made they attended to them. He pointed out that he had recommended the discarding of concrete slots constructed with low quality steel and which did not meet standards.
Harshana Jayasiri said that there were regular meetings with farmers organisations on shortcomings.
Project Director of the Nawagattegama Project, C Samarasinghe said they had managed to rectify some of the allegations levelled by farmers regarding poor engineering.
He added that they could attend to the more recent complaints as well, adding that there were some defects in the old tanks.
According to Samarasinghe the project was in a position to entertain complaints as there was a one-year grace period to attend to defects.