Severe drought hits cultivation

*Nearly 150,000 acres of paddy at risk

*Reservoirs, tanks go dry

Chaminda PERERA and Gampola group correspondent

The severe drought in many parts of the country has threatened the livelihood of thousands of farmers, with 150,000 acres of paddy lands in Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Puttalam districts at risk of being destroyed.

Lack of education in water management among farmers and the people in the dry zone has aggravated this situation.

Authorities stressed the importance of educating farmers on proper water management methods to be adopted in times of drought.

The situation has a serious impact on hydro power generation, leaving the energy sector to depend on fuel guzzling thermal power as water levels continue to recede in the main reservoirs.

Hydro power generation has dropped to 11.8 percent while thermal power generation has increased to 88.3 percent as a result.

A Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) official said yesterday the Board is incurring heavy losses due to the drought and requested the public to minimise energy waste.The water level at the Kotmale reservoir has dropped so sharply that it would be sufficient to produce electricity to full capacity only for five more days.

Kotmale power station electrical engineer N Salie said the reservoir was only 30 percent full, and two of the three generators had to be shut down with the other generator producing electricity for about two hours daily.

The reservoir built in 1985 has a total capacity of 141,000 acre feet of water or 174,000,000 cubic metres.

Many small tanks in the North Central, North Western, North and East provinces have all gone dry and over 7,000 acres of cultivated lands have been abandoned by farmers due to the drought.

The authorities are faced with the challenge of providing potable water to the Anuradhapura city as water levels in many tanks in the heart of the city has dropped drastically.

Meanwhile, Wildlife Department sources said complaints of elephants invading villages are on the increase as many tanks and water retention areas in wildlife parks and sanctuaries have gone dry due to the drought. Elephants invading villages in search of water have destroyed agricultural land and have attacked farmers. The Wildlife Department recently initiated a programme to fill tanks and water ponds within national parks and wildlife sanctuaries to keep jumbos within the parks.