Water projects in Anuradhapura:

Drinking water for rural areas

Nimal Wijesinghe Anuradhapura Additional District Group Correspondent

A comprehensive programme to provide drinking water to the rural areas suffering from acute water shortage has been launched with priority given to the areas where renal diseases have been spreading on a large-scale.

The Water Supply and Drainage Board is being financially assisted by local and foreign agencies for this venture.

Since contaminated water is used for drinking and cooking purposes people become vulnerable to kidney diseases and various renal ailments according to medical experts and researchers.

Kidney disease spreading areas have been identifies as Kebithigollewa, Padaviya, Medawachchiya, Dimbulagala, Medirigiriya, Welikanda etc as water resources in these areas have become contaminated having been mixed with high percentage of arsenic and mercury which cause kidney diseases.

Research show that annually around 2,000 kidney patients are being registered at hospitals for treatments.

The North Central Province (NCP) Health Services Director Dr W Atapattu emphasised that there are around 20,000 renal patients in the NCP at present resulting from the lack of proper drinking water.

North Central Chief Minister Berty Premalal Dissanayake has embarked on a programme to distribute specially designed water filters among the families in disease spreading areas free of charge. One filter is valued at Rs 11,000.

North Central Deputy General Manager of the Water Supply and Drainage Board L L A Peiris said under the circumstances plans have been under way to provide the entire North Central Province with drinking water. He pointed out that 52 percent of the people in the province have pipe born water facilities.

Among the local and foreign agencies supporting the project are World Bank, ADB, UNICEF, Sarvodaya, Plan 'Sri Lanka', Gemi Diriya and Gemi Pubuduwa.