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| Sunday, 1 August 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Drought hits paddy lands in dry zone by Anura Maitipe Over 242,443 acres of cultivable lands have been abandoned due to lack of water and as a result the farming community in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts are facing hardships not only for agricultural use but also for drinking purposes, farmers told the "Sunday Observer". When contacted top officials at Anuradhapura District Secretariat said, there are 210,561 acres of cultivatable lands in Anuradhapura district but this season only 13,118 acres have been cultivated because of water shortage. Officials at Polonnaruwa District Secretariat said, there are 140,000 acres of cultivable lands in Polonnaruwa but only 95,000 acres have been harvested. They find it difficult to irrigate even these lands due to sudden drop in water levels at Parakarma Samudraya and the Giritale tank. Anuradhapura was the most drought affected district in the area. The most of these water tanks have been filled with mud. The storage capacity of these tanks have reduced by 60 to 70 percent, they said. Podiappuhamy (85) in Mihintale said " Those days we had no irrigation problems. But now even with Mahaweli water these tanks, farmers have no water to do the Yala season. This was merely due to reduction of storage capacity of these tanks and now these tanks cannot store water even for two months". The Deputy Minister Land and Irrigation Bimal Ratnayaka said "Already we have launched project to rehabilitate 10,000 tanks at Rs. 400 million. Under first stage 1,000 tanks will be cleaned along with the distribution canal network of these tanks by adding another ten acres of irrigated land for each tank. With the completion of this project another 100,000 acres of newly irrigated land will be added into the total extent of paddy lands in the country. |
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