Mahaweli ‘H’ area tanks being de-silted

Nimal Wijesinghe, Anuradhapura Additional District Group Correspondent

The Anuradhapura Agrarian Service Department has embarked on implementing the removal of sediment in tanks in the Mahaweli ‘H’ area.

Anuradhapura Deputy Agrarian Service Commissioner Pahala Gribawa told the Daily News the disposing of sediment at the Pahala Katthoruwa tank in the Meegalewa jurisdiction in the ‘H’ area is in progress. He said that around 150 small tanks will come under this programme.

“We have deployed heavy vehicles for transporting water to the farmlands in Mahaweli ‘H’ area for the purpose of saving as much as paddy and subsidiary crop cultivations. We hope to save at least twenty percent of these cultivations,” Giribawa emphasized.

He said the farmers were given authority to hire water pumping machines etc, for supplying water to their cultivations which are going dry for saving whatever possible. A maximum sum of Rs 10,000 is being paid to a farmer for this exercise.

He said during the Yala season, around 20,000 hectares were cultivated in the Zone with paddy, maize, soya, chillies and green gram.