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dam-l LS: Sri Lanka's Mahaweli Dam Dream Fades
>From Development VISIONS, Lahore-Pakistan.
http://www.brain.net.pk/~daima/waterline.htm
VOLUME 01, NUMBER 14
Tuesday, November 30, 1999
<waterline@egroups.com>
COMPILED AND EDITED BY:
Khalid Hussain <daima@brain.net.pk>
Zubaida Hussain <dvpk@usa.net>
SRI LANKA: SEVENTIES DREAM FADES IN THE NINETEES
By Renuka Senanayake
COLOMBO, Nov 26 (IPS) - In the seventies, big was still beautiful and the
Sri Lankan government launched the mammoth Mahaweli hydro-project,
generating 2,037 MW, to green the vast dry zone and light up every home in
the island.
At the end of the nineties it is clear the ambitious project has fallen far
short of its goals, and instead a majority of the 100,000 families lured to
the area from the densely populated wet zone with promises of becoming rich
farmers, are worse off now.
Each family was promised two acres of irrigated land and half an acre to
build a house. It was hoped that new schools, hospitals and roads would
create prosperous farming communities in the Anuradhapura, Pollonnaruwa and
Amparai districts.
But in fact many of the settlers still wait for irrigable land, ownership
rights, and compensation for the land some lost to the five giant
reservoirs and canal network of the project. Neither have the children of
settlers received the land promised for housing.
Mahaweli officials are hard pressed to come up with solutions. ''Almost all
available land has been distributed. Awarding any more paddy land is
impossible,'' said L. Kulathilake, land officer of the Mahaweli Authority
at Dehiattakandiya.
''Two of my daughters were forced to seek employment in a garment factory
in Katunayake (Colombo),'' says M.H.M. Podiappuhamy, a farmer in
Salpitigama since 1984.
According to Mahaweli officials, industrial zones were created in the
Mahaweli area to provide alternative employment to the residents.
Vocational training programmes are also conducted by the local Mahaweli
branches. But few settlers have benefited from these.
The shortage of land has forced landless families to encroach on state land
on the banks of the canals.
H.M. Punchibanda's house built on a canal in 1991 was razed to the ground
by court order one month ago. ''The police came and broke down our house.
We only managed to save some of the furniture,'' a distraught Punchibanda
said.
He came to the Mahaweli area with his wife and her parents who were given
two acres of land. His wife, as the child of settlers, was eligible to
receive land and applied in 1989, but the authorities have turned her away.
''Some settlers children who were approved land years ago have not been
given land where as others with influence have been given more than one
plot of land. When we first moved to the Mahaweli areas we were told that
the needs of the settlers children would be seen too. But now it's a
different story,'' says Nissanka, president of the Farmers Association in
Salpitigama, in Dehiattakandiya.
He is angry and blames the government authorities. ''What is the point of
just destroying the houses of the illegal settlers. The government should
find a solution to this problem,'' he says.
Nearly two decades later, settlers who were uprooted by the reservoirs and
canal network wait for compensation. Everyone who owned more than three
acres of land was promised compensation.
''But some families in our village have not yet been paid compensation. In
many cases compensation has only been paid for paddy land,'' says Nissanka
Some Mahaweli farmers complain there is not enough water for cultivation.
The project was expected to make Sri Lanka self- sufficient in rice, by
cultivating 130,000 acres of paddy land. ''We don't have enough water for
our paddy fields during the Yala (main agricultural) season,'' says
Podiappuhamy.
Mahaweli officials admit farmers face difficulty but point out that they do
not have the resources to increase the water supply. ''We advice farmers to
supplement their income by growing other crops like chillies that need less
water,'' said Kulathilake.
As a result a disturbing development in the Mahaweli settlements is the
relatively large number of farmers who have mortgaged or sold the land
given to them -- the reasons are mainly linked to poverty.
The Mahaweli Authority prohibits the sale of land by settlers, allowing
them to mortgage it only to approved banks.
Yet farmers continue to mortgage their land to private businessman. ''About
65 percent of the land in our village has been mortgaged,'' says G.D.
Piyasena president of the Lihiniyagama Farmers Association, in
Dehiattakandiya.
''It is poverty that drives them to mortgage and sell their lands,'' he
explains.
The poorer farmers cannot afford to pay for fertilisers, tractors and other
equipment and are forced to mortgage their land, he said. With time they
find it increasingly hard to pay back the loans and are forced to abandon
their lands.
The Mahaweli scheme was begun with high hopes of building a better future
for the farmers who settled in that area. While some of the goals like the
electrification in some parts of the country, have been realised, the
problems of settlers are many.
Inter Press Service 49 (FF), Defence Colony Market, New Delhi - 110 024 India