On President’s instructions:

Immediate drought relief programme

Nimal Wijesinghe Anuradhapura additional district group corr

Wildlife and Agrarian Services Minister SM Chandrasena revealed that President Mahinda Rajapaksa instructed the Finance Ministry jointly with the Agrarian Services authorities to launch a fool-proof integrated drought relief programme in the Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kurunegala and Puttalam districts immediately. The minister said so at a media briefing at his Anuradhapura office on August 11.

“Accordingly apart from advertising the prescribed form to be filled by the victimized farmers for them to be granted drought relief I have made arrangements to have the said document distributed to the farmers through the Agrarian Services centers in the four districts. The Agriculture Research and Production Assistants are being instructed to go from house to house in their divisions for assessing and ascertaining the cultivation damage and to assist the farmers to furnish information in the prescribed forms”, the minister said.

He said that the crop damages would be decided under three categories such as fully damaged, partly damaged, and minor damaged. The farm lands devastated when close to be harvested comes under the fully damaged category and the arable lands which were prepared to be cultivated with paddy but not reached the sowing level considered as partly damaged.

The farmers who had taken to subsidiary food crops without cultivating paddy are compensated under the minor damaged category, Chandrasena said explaining the proposed crop damage compensation system.

He insisted that the farmers shall be genuine enough to furnish true and correct information relating to their crop damage and assist at their maximum the officials at the survey.

“On the request of the farmer chief who recently conversed with President Rajapaksa at the “Temple Trees” as an immediate relief measure to save the cultivations caught in the drought, 6,000 cultivation wells were dug and we have been able to save 50 percent of the crops thanks to them.

Simultaneously as directed by the President the Sediments removal programme covering around 30,000 large and small tanks islandwide inaugurated by Minister Basil Rajapaksa recently at Kalawewa reservoir. This scheme will assist 130 large scale tanks and 500 small tanks in Anuradhapura district, the minister said.