Veheragala project to be opened soon

Ishara MUDUGAMUWA

The Veheragala irrigation project completed at a cost of Rs. 2,000 million will be opened next month supplying water to the Lunugamvehera reservoir for drinking as well as cultivating purposes.

"We used only treasury funds for this project. We used direct labour employing local people to work on this project. Providing job opportunities to people," Weheragala Project Resident Engineer L. S. Suriyabandara said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa ceremonially launched the construction work on the project in 2005 when he was Prime Minister to uplift the living standards of the farmer community by bringing in irrigation facilities to the Hambantota district. The reservoir was constructed at Veheragala by damming the Menik Ganga.

Irrigation and Water Management Minister Chamal Rajapaksa and Irrigation Minister Jayatissa Ranaweera inspected and monitored its progress.

In the adjoining Kirindi Oya basin, it has a catchment area of an 1,178 sq. km and most of the water in this river was diverted to the Lunugamwehera reservoir, which has a capacity of 222 million cubic metres from the total annual average flow of 240 million cm of water to the sea.

There is an annual deficit of about 100 million cm of water to cultivate 5,000 hectares of land. The project envisages to regulate about 80 percent of water in Menik Ganga at Veharagala by constructing an environmental friendly reservoir with a water way conveying about 64 million cm of regulated water to the Kirindi Oya basin while releasing about 30 million cm of regulated water down the Menik Ganga.

"The estimated cost was Rs. 2,600 million. But we could finished it by spending only Rs. 2,000 million. We didn't get any financial support from foreign countries.

This project will provide drinking water to the Kataragama area. With the commissioning of the project, farmers can cultivate in both Yala and Maha without difficulties," Suriyabandara added.

This is not only an irrigation project. Under this project, we rebuilt small reservoirs, we did so many programs to protect the environment and resettled farmers who had occupied the forest illegally. "Roads and infrastructure facilities of the area were developed.

Former Secretary of the Irrigation and Water Management Ministry made a great effort to make this project successful," Planning Director of the project D. M. Abhayaratne said.