By Pabodha Hettige
The Agrarian Services and Wildlife Ministry says that more than 7,000 irrigation channels in the country need immediate renovation.
"During the last year the irrigation engineers were only able to renovate nearly 600 of the total identified 8000 irrigation channels," Agrarian Services Commissioner General Ravindra Hewavitharana said.
A large number of farming communities had requested the ministry to renovate the channels, but the total budget allocation for tank renovation per year is not sufficient to carry out the task, he said.
This year the ministry had received Rs. 280 million for the purpose. Hewavitharana said that from the Northern and Eastern provinces the District Secretariats had requested renovations of 165 tanks to facilitate the livelihood development of the communities. The ministry had received 45 such requests from Mulativu, 35 from Trincomalee, 21 from Vavuniya and 17 from Batticaloa districts.
"The ministry would however give priority to renovate the tanks, which were destroyed by the floods in early 2011," Hewavitharana said.
Responding to a query he said that the ministry would extend technical assistance, human resources and other types of support to the nongovernmental organizations undertaking the task.
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