Paddy, subsidiary crops devastated:

Drought wreaks havoc in NCP and EP

Nimal Wijesinghe, Anuradhapura additional District group corr.

The severe drought in the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts and the Eastern Province, has caused a scarcity of drinking water in addition to the destruction caused to paddy and subsidiary food crops.

The Nuwarawewa and Tisawewa reservoirs which provide drinking water to a population of nearly 150,000 in the Anuradhapura new town, old town and the suburbs, depend on the Mahaweli waters released from the Kalawewa tank, which possesses a capacity of 100,000 acre feet of water. Due to the drought and the irresponsible water management by the authorities, the Kalawewa tank has only around 12,000 acre feet of water at present, farmers said.

In the circumstances, until heavy rains fall, no water would be issued to other tanks from the Kalawewa tank.

The water levels of the Nuwarawewa and Tisawewa tanks, have decreased to 15,000 and 12,000 acre feet from a capacity of 36,050 and 3,500 acre feet of water respectively.

The North Central WSDB's Deputy General Manager L.L.A. Peris, appeals to consumers to refrain from wasting water and to conserve every drop of water during the present crisis.

It is learnt that in the Anuradhapura district, including the 12,000 hectares in the Mahaweli 'H' area, only about 50,000 hectares have been cultivated with paddy, despite the Yala target of 79,000 hectares.

The farmers in the Anuradhapura district have secured only 12,000 metric tons of fertilizer subsidy, although the estimate for the district is 34,000 metric tons.

The Agriculture Ministry's Secretary instructed the Government Agents and the provincially based Agriculture authorities to take steps to collect data of the drought situation, the farmers victimized, etc to arrange relief measures.