New reservoir to cultivate more paddy lands in Mannar

Lakshmi DE SILVA

A reservoir as big as Parakrama Samudra is being built in Kappachchi area on the border of Anuradhapura and Mannar to cultivate 27,000 acres of paddy land, Minister of Irrigation, Ports and Aviation Minister Chamal Rajapaksa said at the opening ceremony of the Water and Man National Hydro-culture exhibition for schoolchildren at the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress premises, Colombo, yesterday.

He said, "Though I propose many valuable suggestions and projects the departmental circulars obstructed the financial provision to them even though they were to start with good intentions. Yet I am grateful to the private sector organization Messrs Caltex Lubricants for assisting the exhibition on Water and Man which would convey the message about the importance of water to the schoolchildren and the value of water management that was our heritage.

"Our kings built thousands of reservoirs in the past to produce food for the people. During the British era these reservoirs were destroyed and they killed thousands of our ancestors of Moneragala. I was able to see for myself the destruction of reservoirs, the British had done when I was in that area during the recent Uva Provincial Council elections. Those reservoirs were not properly reconstructed so far due to red tape in certain departmental circulars. But if the Government officials and the private sector and people get-together we could resolve this problem, he said.

"During the last two decades Mannar District which has a fertile soil and the Yoda Wewa (Giants Reservoir) area was not utilized for cultivation but the engineers and officials of the Irrigation Department had reconstructed most of the reservoirs. This Maha season around 1,500 acres of paddy would be cultivated and the next year it would be increased to 27,000 acres," the Minster said.

By rehabilitating and constructing reservoirs we could bring the ground water levels back to normal. Still our people are not aware of the value of water. Therefore we should educate the children about the value of water especially during the first two weeks of October each year and this exhibition was useful to schoolchildren and university students as well, he noted.