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| Thursday, 22 April 2004 |
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Cleaning and purifying river water for sustainable use by Florence Wickramage The Irrigation and Environment Ministries' joint launch of the "Pavithra Ganga" programme last year has misunderstood the Indian concept of the low cost local technology on which the Indian programme has been successful, said former Additional Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry and Environmentalist Sunil Sarath Perera recently. Sunil Sarath Perera was addressing a function organised by an Environmental Group at the Suvisuddharama Temple in Colombo. The Indian Pavithra Ganga programme could be used as a role model to base Sri Lanka's programme. The Indian programme launched by Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on July 14th 1994 as the Ganga Action Plan and supported by active community participation has recorded a resounding success. This programme was later named "Pavithra Ganga" and is now covering the lakes in India besides major rivers. Sunil Sarath Perera said that the programme is not merely a river development programme which involves planting of trees on river banks. The programme proper involves a wider concept of `cleaning and purifying river water for sustainable use'. As such Sri Lanka should study the Indian programme in detail and use the simple technology to purify our river waters. This programme could be extended to cover our lakes too successfully, Perera said. While appreciating the Environment and Natural Resources Minister A. H. M. Fowzie's recent action to immediately halt garbage dumping at the Verahena Kadirawana barren paddy lands, Sunil Sarath Perera said that a programme to protect the Muthurajawela and Bellanwila-Attidiya Wetlands was a priority need in order to stabilise Colombo. Perera further issued a serious warning that Colombo city would be an impossible place to live in the near future if the haphazard land filling of Muthurajawela and the Bellanwila-Attidiya Sanctuaries are not halted forthwith. |
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