DISPLACED COLONISTS GIVEN RAW DEAL
200 families dumped in Nelungama
Around 200 families displaced under the Deduru Oya Irrigation Project and settled in Nelungama in the Karuwalagaswewa area are in need of basic facilities and adequate protection from wild elephants.
The settlers accused the authorities of acquiring their fertile lands and paddy fields in the De-
People resettled in Nelumgama accused the authorities for being insensitive to their living environment
duru Oya area and compelling them to settle in an arid region home to herds of wild elephants that were a constant threat to them.
A colonist A.M.Heen Banda (65) said the community of traditional farmers who lived a contended life depending on agriculture in the Deduru Oya area had been reduced to misery. “Politicians and planners of the Deduru Oya Project were only concerned with the acquisition of our land for the project. After I was resettled in Nelungama wild elephants entered my land and destroyed my wattle and daub house which was being built at that time. I escaped with my life when an elephant pulled down my house on which I had already spent about Rs.75,000,” he said.
Several farmers who expressed their grievances said their crops including coconut trees were de- stroyed by elephants. A resident of an adjacent village, Herath Ekanayake said that 40 coconut trees in bearing in his garden were destroyed in one night by elephants.
Meanwhile the Chief Incumbent of the Sri Lumbini Vihara in Ihalapuliyankulama, Ven Manawe Pagnnarama Thera said he made representations in this regard to Minister Chamal Rajapaksa and that he [the minister] had promised to take up the issue with the relevant authorities.