Rs 200 m worth water projects for North

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

Hundreds of thousands of people who have been resettled in the Northern Province have access to clean water and sanitation, National Water Supply and Drainage Board chairman Karunasena Hettiarachchi told the Daily News yesterday.

He said that although there are some villages that may not have the supply of water for all 24 hours, they too get their share of water from the Board's water bowser service in the province.

"None of the families who have been resettled in the province is water-starved," said Hettiarachchi. He said they have started new water projects in Kilinochchi and Jaffna with the help of the Asian Development Bank and the French government.

They provide funds to the tune of Rs 200 million. The Board recently started a project to provide water to Mannar and Vavuniya districts with the help of Japanese funds, he said.

The National Water Supply and Drainage Board will have to address their water and sanitation issues fully by the end of the year. The board has started a campaign to raise funds for water projects in the province. The estimated cost of the project is 20,000 million US dollars, according to sources at National Water Supply and Drainage Board.