Businessman encroaching on paddy fields

THE BUSINESSMAN IS ATTEMPTINGTO MAKE CAPITAL OUT OF IT AND HAD FILLEDTHE PADDY FIELDS FOR BUILDING PURPOSES.THE LANDVALUE IN THE AREA IN INCREASING IN

LEAPS AND BOUNDS,

Residents of Kiribathgoda are perturbed that a prominent businessman is attempting to fill 150 acres of paddy land in Kiribathgoda area that had been without irrigation for more than 20 years.

They accused the officials of allowing the individual concerned to fill the paddy fields by not attending to the maintenance of the two anicuts in the Mudunela irrigation canal.

They pointed out that the anicuts had been damaged during other development activities and left without repairs and that the canal with stagnant water was now a mosquito breeding ground creating a serious health hazard.

If this vast tract of paddy land was filed in the low lying area of the Mudunela canal, the free flow of storm water in Kadawatha, Kiribathgoda, Dalupitiya and Heenkenda areas would be obstructed creating a flood threat and extensive environmental damage.

“The canal bund was widened and the earth dumped in the paddy fields. Now we are living in constant fear of Dengue and rat fever due to the dilapidated state of the canal and the paddy fields covered with shrub jungle,” a farmer of Sirimavo Bandaranayake Mawatha in Mahara S.A.Norbert Perera said.

The farmers are reluctant to take the risk and work in the paddy fields for possible danger of rat fever. The authorities have neglected repairs to the anicut and left the canal and a vast tract of paddy fields located in a highly populated area to the mercy of the jungles.

The businessman is attempting to make capital out of it and had filled the paddy fields for building purposes. The land value in the area is increasing by leaps and bounds, residents said. Another paddy cultivator R.A.Neville said waste water from houses and business establishments is drained into the paddy fields creating a threat of rat fever.

“Several farmers had died of rat fever. We request the authorities to repair the two anicuts and to provide irrigation facilities to cultivate the paddy fields as in the past.”

However, the Regional Officer of the Kelaniya Agrarian Services N.A. Jayaweera said the anicuts in the canal were damaged during the construction works of a project undertaken by the Provincial Road development Authority and that f unds were not available at present to restore them. He said he was prepared to restore the canal if funds were provided.