City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem, marking the United Nations’ World Water Day, said the country’s Water Board was in need of serious reform.
He was speaking at the 26th World Water Day ceremony, at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, yesterday.
Minister Hakeem said the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, as a monopoly, has a duty to look after its customers.
The Water Board is in charge of distributing purified drinking water to the whole island.
“Our financial viability is something that we need to focus on,” Minister Hakeem said. “It would be a tragedy if the Water Supply and Drainage Board’s financial viability is to be a perennial question.”
He promised to announce “serious” reforms this year.
He also criticized some members of trade unions, saying that they should be more concerned with the quality of service than wage increases.
“We need to do several reforms to make ourselves an institution which would be of great service to the nation,” he said.
National Water Supply and Drainage Board Chairman K. A. Ansar said Sri Lanka was blessed to have many tanks, built by past kings.
“It was the great King Parakramabahu who said: ‘Let not one drop of water that falls on earth be allowed to reach the sea without being used by man,” he said.
Ansar reiterated President Maithripala Sirisena’s pledge to renovate 2,000 tanks this year.
He said clean, reliable water is an insurance during times of drought, a benefit to man and nature alike.
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