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| Tuesday, 31 August 2004 |
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| President orders immediate drought relief for poor families by Stanley Samarasinghe and Nirushi Wimalaweera President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, with the concurrence of Cabinet of Ministers has instructed all District Secretaries to extend drought relief to victims whose monthly income does not exceed Rs.3000. This is in terms of Circular No.01 of 2004. The provision of dry rations was hitherto allowed by all successive governments only in the event of harvest failure for two successive seasons but the President and the Cabinet decided to deviate from this practice due to the extraordinary severity of the drought this season. All families who do not come under the public service and whose regular monthly income does not exceed Rs.3000 are entitled to drought relief under the circular. In spite of adequate funds made available by the Government, the distribution of drinking water remains a serious problem, as revealed by the District Secretaries in the drought stricken areas. The President has instructed the authorities concerned to make use of all bowsers belonging to the three Armed Services and other Government institutions to overcome this difficulty. Answering the media, the District Secretaries revealed that the Department of Social Services has already supplied 1,000 litre and 2,000 litre capacity water tanks to them to distribute drinking water and that they have been instructed to engage hired lorries if the amount of bowsers prove inadequate for the purpose. According to them, the deserving cases of drought relief have already been selected and each such family will get a dry ration of 30 kilograms of rice, five kilograms of wheat flour, three kilograms of sugar and two kilograms of dhal by September 15. A member of each beneficiary family must contribute four hours labour towards a development project in the area to earn this dry ration. According to the Operational Director General of the General Treasury Lalith R.de Silva, District Secretaries have been instructed to supervise the needs of the drought affected areas once in two days and report the shortcomings to the Social Services Department for allocation of adequate funds. According to Deputy Director of Social Services, U.K. Bandara, the District Secretary of Mullaitivu has by now informed that District too is affected by the drought and that steps will be taken to provide relief to 6000 families in the Mullaitivu District shortly. As disclosed by Deputy Director Bandara, the following drought aid have been released to the respective districts in two stages as follows: Kurunegala Rs.150 million for 162,575 families, Anuradhapura Rs.150 million for 158,989 families, Puttalam Rs.46 million for 46,193 families, Matale Rs.15 million for 16,279 families, Monaragala Rs.23 million for 41,795 families, Hambantota Rs.15 million for 14,567 families, Polonnaruwa Rs.23 million for 30,419 families, Vavuniya Rs.13 million for 22,806 families, Trincomalee Rs.12 million for 21,157 families, Badulla Rs.25 million for 42,481 families, Batticaloa Rs.7 million 8,609 families, Ampara Rs.7 million for 8,614 families, Mannar Rs.3 million for 2,815 families, Kilinochchi Rs.3 million for 3,801 families and Mullaitivu (only under the 2nd stage) Rs.2 million for 6,000 families. Education Ministry help for drought hit children The Ministry of Education will send dry rations and water to children in drought stricken areas to enable them to attend school. Funds from the Ministry's Consolidated Funds will be allocated for this. Simultaneously, assistance will be sought from leading National Schools to voluntarily assist in this program by getting parents and students to contribute. National Schools, Director T.H.P. Geeganage will co-ordinate the program, the Education Ministry said in a press release yesterday. The Ministry will also allow national school principals to decide on the duration of school hours in these areas. |
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