Pipe borne water for 300,000 families in North

Chamikara Weerasinghe

The National Water Supply and Drainage Board is taking steps towards increasing its coverage of pipe borne water in the North to meet the drinking water needs of at least 300,000 families.

This is on the instructions from President Mahinda Rajapaksa to expedite development activities on water supply and sanitation in the Northern Province.

The government has set apart Rs 33 billion to implement what would be major water supply and sanitation projects in the Northern Province from next year, National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWS&DB) chairman Karunasena Hettiarachchi told the Daily News yesterday.

The biggest will be Jaffna Water Supply and Sanitation Project estimated at US $ 154 million (Rs17.8 billion). There are 15 projects to be launched in Kilinochchi, Mannar, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya, he said.

The existing pipe borne water supply coverage in the province is a result of rapid implementation of water supply and sanitation projects by the board since the end of the war, NWS&DB sources said. ”The Province’s water supply schemes were in dilapidated condition as a result of the decades long war. Most were non-operational at the time the country was liberated in 2009. The board has rehabilitated most of them under Uthuru Vasanthaya, sources said.

Providing water supply and sanitation facilities for resettled areas have been met using foreign funds. UNESCO and Japanese Agency for International Cooperation and Assistance are among the funders.

NWS&DB has constructed thousands of tube wells, pump houses and shallow wells in the Province to meet the people’s drinking water needs. They were constructed especially to facilitate the war-displaced in Kilinochchi, Vavuniya and Mannar, sources said.

Hettiarachchi said, President Rajapaksa had directed them to provide pipe borne coverage to the entire Northern Province on priority basis. He said the NWS&DB is expected to meet 48 percent of the country’s pipe borne water supplies by 2015.