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| Sunday, 15 August 2004 |
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Tug-of-war likely over water policy by Shanika Sriyananda The preliminary draft of the new National Water Policy, prepared only in Sinhala by a team of local experts, is likely to trigger a tug-of-war between the Agriculture, Lands and Irrigation Ministry and other line Ministries which deal with water resources, the Sunday Observer reliably learns. Environmentalists wonder why the Ministry of Mahaweli Development is asking for an English copy of the draft policy, when it can be understood by the majority of people in this country. "We think they want to satisfy the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank by handing over the new draft to these donor agencies to get their views to continue with the privatizing of water resources", they said. The expert committee appointed by Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Irrigation Anura Dissanayake on June 25 submitted its report to the Minister last Wednesday. The committee has submitted the draft policy to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Ministry of Urban Development and Water Supply and Ministry of Mahaweli Development for their comments. Except the request of the Ministry of Mahaweli Development for an English translation of the draft policy, no other Ministries have submitted their comments to the committee so far. The committee includes T.G. Dharmaratne, Director General Irrigation Department, Dr. Athula Senaratne, Chairman Water Resource Board, A.D.F.Gunawardena, Director Special Projects of the Ministry of Irrigation, S. Selvaraja, Consultant of the Ministry, J.W.M.R.T. Seeman, Director of the Ministry, B. K. Jayasundara, Director of the Ministry, Dr. Wasantha Bandara, Consultant to Minister Dissanayake, Piyal Parakrama, Environmentalist and Udula Bandara Ousadahami, Irrigation Expert. When contacted, a member of the Ministerial Committee confirmed that there was such a request, but the Ministry did not submit a translation. "We did it under the instructions of Minister Dissanayake especially to make it understandable to the ordinary people, who are the real beneficiaries of water", he added.According to him, the existing water policy, prepared with ADB funds and approved by the Cabinet in 2001, is in English, a Sinhala version had not been prepared. "We do not want to hide anything from the ordinary people. This is a very transparent draft and there are no proposals for selling the country's water resources," he said adding that the previous policy had regulations for water trading. "However, we are still awaiting the comments from other ministries to be included in the draft", he added. |
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