The country’s rivers and shallow aquifers which are being utilized for supplying drinking water are contaminated because of excessive use of toxic substances in agriculture and plantations, Prime Minister D.M.Jayaratne revealed last week
Addressing a conference on Community and Water Services Challenge and Sustainability held at Kandy on Thursday (29), the Prime minister said the alarming situation was witnessed in other countries as well in the region where more emphasis is given for self-sufficiency in food and agriculture through maximum use of chemical fertilizer neglecting the aspect of clean water requirements of the rural populations.
Extracts of the Premier’s speech:
Water and air are essential for the origin and survival of humans, animals and plants. Unrestricted accessibility to clean water and air is a pre-requisite and a right of the living species. In fact, all civilizations of the world originated and flourished thousands of years ago close to river basins where water was available plentifully for the domestic use, agriculture and animal husbandry of the people of these civilizations.
Sri Lanka’s history which goes back over 2500 years records the yeoman service rendered by Sri Lankan Kings who constructed thousands of large, medium and small scale irrigation tanks and canals in the dry zone of the country to conserve water during rainy seasons to be used for agriculture and domestic requirements of the people during off seasons. Those irrigation tanks spread in all parts of North Central, North western, Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka are even today the main sources of water for paddy cultivation and other agriculture pursuits of those provinces.
Sri Lanka’s wet zone is quite fortunate to receive mean annual rainfall of 1800 mm while some other areas of the country receive less than 900 mm of rainfall annually. Successive Governments, through the initiative of Water Supply and Drainage Board, had endeavoured to provide pipe-borne water not only to the urban areas but also to rural areas in the country. The National Water Supply & Drainage Board had however managed so far to provide only 30% of country’s population with pipe-borne water. There is yet a considerable section of the rural population in the country not having easy access to clean water because of paucity of rainfall in those areas. Lack of accessibility to safe water in the agriculture based rural economies thus impact adversely on the socio-economic wellbeing of the rural community which lead to rural urban migration.
Sri Lanka has over 15 years of experience promoting community organizations to provide their own water supply and sanitation facilities through community Water supply and sanitation projects. Over 3500 community based organizations that were formed to implement the projects are now empowered to manage, operate, and maintain these systems.
Similar to Sri Lanka other countries of the Asian region too had promoted rural communities and households to execute and maintain community water service systems. The distinguished participants at this Conference may possess wide knowledge and experience in conceptualizing, executing and maintaining such community based water service systems in their respective countries. The lessons learnt in implementing such projects and experience gathered over the years on this subject by the respective participants could be certainly of mutual benefit to them.
Before concluding my speech, I wish to draw the attention of the participants of this important seminar to the increased tendency for water pollution in the countries of the Asian region through excessive use of fertilizer and pesticides in agriculture and plantations in these countries. It had been observed that surface water and shallow aquifers which are being utilized for supply of drinking water in Sri Lanka are contaminated because of excessive use of these toxic substances in agriculture, paddy cultivation and plantations. This alarming situation is witnessed in other countries as well in the region where more emphasis is given for self-sufficiency in food and agriculture by excessive use of chemical fertilizer neglecting the aspect of clean water requirements of the rural populations.
I would like to request that the learned participants at this Conference may give due consideration among other matters to this aspect of surface water pollution in our countries and evolve solutions to make available cleaner and safer water for the use of the people in the rural areas of our countries.
Three days of discussions, exchange of views and experience by the participants on this theme would certainly enhance their knowledge which they can make use of for improving the quality and efficiency of the Community Water Supply Projects in their respective countries.
I wish all success of the deliberations at this International Conference.
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