Water - a dream come true for Makaladeniya

by Gamini Warushamana

We now have water, said K. Kandasami (61), a Tamil estate labourer of Makaladeniya with sheer happiness looking at the children playing splashing water. The new tap in his compound provides water to the parched land. Kandasami, a casual labourer said that they never dreamt of pipe-borne water for their huts, but Gemidiriya made this dream a reality.

The Gemidiriya Community Development and Livelihood Improvement Project (GCDLIP) last week opened three infrastructure projects in the Gampaha village in Haldumulla in the Badulla district. The Makaladeniya water supply project is one of them.

Makaladeniya, a small hamlet comprises 68 Tamil families in the Gampaha village where the majority are Sinhalese. Both communities live in harmony. Makaladeniya is the most underprivileged in the village where Tamil estate workers settled down around two decades ago. The most burning issue of the people was drinking water and they had to trek a long way along hilly terrain to fetch water. The rest of the village has a regular supply of pipe-borne water.

When the Gemidiriya People's Company, the Gemidiriya village organisation drew up its village development plan, people agreed to give prominence to the Makaladeniya water project, because all of them knew the hardship faced by the community in Makaladeniya.

The project which cost Rs. 1,213,269 comprises the Gemidiriya contribution - Rs. 849,288 and Rs. 363,980 community contribution. The community contribution consists of cash and labour.

Each family, provided Rs. 2,000 and worked 29 days to complete the project. Water comes from a spring in a mountain along the 600m-long pipeline to the storage tank. The nearly 3 km-long distribution line provides water to each household and even huts with polythene or cadjan roofs now have tap water.

Paying Rs. 2, 000 was not an easy task for many of the families because most of them are extremely poor. K. Pechai (62) said that she had to pawn her gold necklace to raise the money while M. Muthai (59) said that she had to pawn her earrings to find money. The Gemidiriya principles stress community contribution. People should have the feeling of ownership of these projects.

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