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• Irrigation and On-farm Water Management in Sri Lanka
• SPUR denigrates Lanka's political leaders

Irrigation and On-farm Water Management in Sri Lanka

I am writing this in response to the letter on the above subject (DN Sep 7) by Walter Aramkumar.

While I agree with most of comments made by Mr. Aramkumar, I do not agree with his last paragraph which I repeat below.

"As the Land Use Division in the Irrigation Department, officials at the ministerial level and the higher authorities are not aware of the potential and the expertise available in the Land Use Division and tend to direct funds from donor agencies for water management and visiting scientists to the agriculture department which has hardly any personnel trained in on-farm water management. If the authorities really want to have good water management, they should use the above two publications."

In the outset, I must mention here that there are more than twenty officers, highly qualified and with many years of experience working for on-farm water management discipline in the Department of Agriculture.

I am happy to say that we have few of the highly qualified officers in the region and given leadership to on-farm water management technology development and transfer.

You can pick up most of the names and their qualifications from INFORM data base published by the Sri Lanka Council of Agricultural Research Policy Office, D.R. Wijewardhana Mawatha, Colombo 10. They are scattered in more than half a dozen research stations and extension centres.

To my knowledge there is no such a highly qualified research and extension team trained in on farm water management available for any other organization.

Their expertise have also utilized by many donor agencies and some of the countries in the region. The team probably is one of the best in the region.

Ironically most of the work performed for one of the two publications referred to in the letter of Mr. Aramkumar was done by Mr. Ranjith, a Subject Matter Specialist of the DOA.

Dr. S. Somasiri, who has worked for the Department since 1970, has compiled most of the research work done by the DOA for the Mahaweli Development Programme.

The famous Catchment C Project at the Agriculture Research Station Mahailluppallama, and Palvehera Pilot Project were the birth places of most of the crop and on-farm recommendations used by Mahaweli today.

The on-farm water management systems designed and implemented in Kantalai Sugar Corporation Pilot Project by the DOA, has more than doubled the sugar-cane yield.

The DOA has provided technical assistance and training for the major irrigation development programs such as Mahaweli Project, Village Irrigation Rehabilitation Project, Major Irrigation Rehabilitation Project, and numerous number of drip and micro sprinkler irrigation systems established in the country.

We have done more than hundred training programmes on soil and on-farm water management for the officers engaged in the above projects who in turn trained the farmers.

This is in addition to regular training programmes conducted for the extension officers of the Department of Agriculture.

HENRY GAMAGE - Soil and Water Research and Development Institute, Department of Agriculture Peradeniya.

SPUR denigrates Lanka's political leaders

As a long-time supporter of the People's Alliance now resident in Australia, I was extremely interested in the two news articles which appeared in your paper last week about the visit to Melbourne by Sri Lanka's High Commissioner in Australia, Maj. Gen. Janaka Perera.

I am, like many other Sri Lankans here, quite sceptical of the credentials of some of the organisers of these events. I do not believe that they reflect in any way the thinking of the majority of Sri Lankans both at home or overseas. Their extremist views and denigration of Sri Lanka's political leaders reflects badly on the country's image.

The latest press release of one of these groups, the Society for Peace, Unity & Human Rights in Sri Lanka or SPUR, shows the utter contempt they have for Sri Lanka's political leaders and the general public.

Here are some excerpts:

Both the Sri Lankan President and the Leader of the Opposition are falling over each other to gratify their western masters by acquiescing in the demands of the Tamil Tiger terrorists.

The bone of contention between Chandrika and Ranil is not the grand betrayal of the nation - they both are wholly for it - but who will deliver the wishes of the masters.

Both of them know that whoever who succeeds in serving Sri Lanka's future on a platter to the Tamil separatists can succeed in clinging to power from then until the day of judgement - the day Tamil racists takeover the entire country.

In that short period, he/she and their cohorts plan to bleed the country of whatever wealth that is left so that they can flee to the safe haven of the west and live happily ever after.

There certainly is no limit to the vulgar greed that fires the sinful lives of these political crooks. While the two self-seeking leaders manipulate their party faithful to achieve their own ends, it is surprisingly frustrating to observe that the rank and file do not apprehend that their main enemy is not the UNP or PA fellow parliamentarians but the abominable LTTE terrorists.

"Chandrika is nothing but a bad political faux pas - a party blunder. Chosen by the SLFP hierarchy to lead since she was the daughter of the Badaranaike seniors and swept to power not because of her "leadership" qualities but because of the immense hatred people bore against the corrupt previous UNP regime, Chandrika was - and is - an alien to the masses.

"Brought up in a depraved Parisian life style, characterless and half-educated, Chandrika may be the least suitable Minister to hold the highest position in the country.

"If not for the massive boulder that sits on his grave, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike would have risen up to curse his French daughter, President Chandrika and all her men who have turned his policies topsy turvy.

"He who left the elite - the then ruling class - and created a national front successfully would know that Sri Lankans are not naive cravens."

My question is this. Should Sri Lanka's leaders and the general public tolerate this kind of arrogance by people who are safely living in Western countries? Surely not. I fear the High Commissioner is being involved, quite unwittingly, in the machinations of these groups who are only seeking to build up a profile for themselves in far-away Australia using the ethnic conflict at home. Should not the Foreign Ministry in Colombo advise the Ambassador to denounce such groups in the strongest possible terms and keep away from them as much as possible?

I am just as keen as any other Sri Lankan to combat LTTE propaganda overseas which these groups say they are involved in. But in my efforts to do so, I do not arrogate to myself the right to denigrate the highest in the land and impose my own views on their conduct, especially now that I have left Sri Lanka.

A. Rathnayake - Clayton.

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