Ceylon Today Editorial

Water

11 October 2016

Water is a right.

And, as it's a right, it's the bounden duty of the government to ensure its availability to the masses of this country.

Primarily, water should be available to the public to meet their drinking water and ablution needs. In times of drought, the other needs of water, such as for irrigation and power generation may be secondary. Even, water,required for man's primary needs such as for drinking and for his ablutions, in critical situations such as a drought, transcends the need of water for livestock and the ensuring of it, for those animals living in the wild.

Currently, Sri Lanka is in the grip of a severe drought. The island, since the floods of May 2016, where it was a victim of unexpectedly heavy rainfall for at least a day or two that month, has, thereafter, been in the grip of, needless to say, a prolonged drought.

Sri Lanka, in 'normal 'years, enjoys two monsoons. Those are the North-East (NE) monsoon which falls in the country in November of each year and the other is the South-West (SW) which falls in May. Those monsoonal rains, if they do come on time, are sufficient to meet the water needs of the country, despite a growing population of some 20 million plus. Compare this with a population of a mere three million plus in the 1930s!

Water needs on such occasions are sufficient to cover the requirement of water for drinking; ablutions; irrigation; gardens and plants; washing of vehicles; livestock, fauna and flora in the wild; other parched lands and hydro-electric power generation of a sizeable amount, though, insufficient to meet even 50% of the island's electric power generation needs in good times of more than sufficient rains received by the island.

In recent times, such severe droughts afflicted the country at least six times. Those were in the years 1982, 1992, 1996, 2001, 2013 and now, in 2016. Droughts may take place due to varied reasons. One of those causes may be due to 'climate change and global warming'. The other cause for droughts may be due to the 'usual order of nature.'

Due to the 'sin' of the 'usual nature of things' droughts have been occurring, from time immemorial. Those cannot be attributed to 'climate change and global warming.'

The context of the present drought is not dissimilar to the other five occasions previously, as said above, when Sri Lanka was gripped by droughts. That is the failure of the NE and SW monsoons.

Whether the failure of the two seasonal monsoons is due to global warming or because of the 'normal course of things', like what used to sometimes happen in ancient times (long before global pollution); is not the issue here.

In modern times, such as in the present context, no responsible government can wash their hands off, by blaming droughts, like the present one gripping the country, to the weather or due to climate change and thereby sit and do nothing to alleviate the sufferings of the masses.

They need to ensure that man's requirement for water, islandwide, to meet his basic needs, is made available. Yesterday we met a labourer who does work at a house in Mount Lavinia. He travels from Beruwela. This man, whose name is Jayasiri, told us that they have been badly afflicted by the drought.

Obviously, with no access to pipe borne water, he said that they are dependent on 'local philanthropists' to provide them with water and not the government. They got their water from such philanthropists at 2 a.m. yesterday! He however, said that the problem is that those ahead of the queue come with barrels to collect their water.

More often than not, what happens in such situations is that those at the end of the queue, finally, end up getting no water. "There are fights and brawls as a result and the situation is looking dangerous and ugly," he said. It is a tragedy that whatever little water that indigents like Jayasiri get are from philanthropists and not from the government.

The government is elected to power to serve the people. And those needs also include the provision of water. If they cannot fulfil their obligations, there is then a question mark in regard to the Yahapalanaya they tout.

'Good governance' or Yahapalanaya is not restricted to matters fiduciary, and, in the narrower context, its applicability confined to the proper administration of government institutions only. In its broader sense, it must also ensure, that the basic needs of those living at the grassroots level, such as those of people like Jayasiri's, in this instance a necessity like water, too is also made available.