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Project to divert Menik Ganga immediately halted

by Rajmi Manatunga

The Government has ordered the immediate termination of a project launched by the people of the Lunugamvehera area to divert the Menik Ganga to Lunugamvehara where there is an acute shortage of water for farming and other purposes.

Irrigation and Water Management Minister Gamini Jayawikrama Perera told the Daily News that the farmer organisations who had launched the project agreed to discontinue the diversion after discussions with Government officials at Parliament last week.

"We completely understand their helpless situation but such a project will definitely cause major environmental problems in the area. The Ministry officials explained this to the farmers and they promised to discontinue the construction process," he said.

It is said that the canal-way diverting the river has already been dug upto two kilometres and the Minister said they will take steps to refill it.

The diversion which was cited by the authorities and environmentalists as 'unauthorised' and harmful to the environment is said to have been supported by several local politicians and sugar cane cultivators of the area who wanted wild elephants out of their land.

Environment and Natural Resources Minister Rukman Senanayake commenting on the situation said that the project was a threat to the whole Southern region which naturally inherited dry weather. "If they go on with this project which the Prime Minister ordered to stop the entire area including Yala and Kataragama will go dry," he claimed.

Prime Minister Ranil Wikremesinghe recently laid the foundation stone for the 'real' Lunugamvehera project which seeks to divert the water of the Menik Ganga of which 85 to 90 percent is wasted during the rainy season, to the rain-starved area. The proposed canal-way leading to the 100,000 square acre Lunugamvehera tank will be 14 kilometres long and Minister Perera said that a working committee comprising the Secretary to the Ministry, Wildlife officials and farmer representatives has been appointed to review the project and expedite the construction.

The project room will be built in Kataragama and the project report has now been sent to the Surveyor General for inspection.

However, the people of Lunugamwehera of whom the majority are farmers warn that if the Government does not expedite the construction of the tank they will have to face a drought which will vastly affect the agriculture-based economy of the area.

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