Devastating drought
16 January 2017The present drought conditions throughout the country have threatened agriculture, the drinking water supply as well as the generation of hydropower.
President Maithripala Sirisena has issued a directive to create a special task force to deal with the consequences of the prevailing drought conditions in the country.
The latest reports indicate that catchment areas as well as the agricultural areas have been severely affected in more than thirteen districts in the country.
With Minister of Disaster Management Anura Priyadarshana Yapa holding a press briefing last week elaborating on the action plan to deal with the drought situation, President Sirisena has focused on helping the people, particularly the farmers, directly affected by the drought.
A collective effort by all ministries and departments along with the private sector is the need of the hour to overcome the drought related problems.
According to the Meteorological Department the present drought condition prevails in various parts of South Asia threatening the livelihood of millions of farmers as well as the drinking water supply and hydropower.
The reports from South India are agonizing with several farmers committing suicide as a result of prevailing drought conditions.
President Sirisena who was the Chief Guest at a passing out parade of the Sri Lanka Air Force at the China Bay in Trincomalee a few days ago has even mentioned about the drought condition in the country and pointed out the need of deploying the Armed Forces to help in the drought relief activities.
More than 200,000 people have been affected by the drought throughout the country. The Northern and Eastern Provinces and several regions in down South have been identified as worst hit areas.
Some of the politicians in the Northern and Eastern Provinces have cautioned the government not to allow for a situation like in South India where a large number of farmers have committed suicide as a result of setbacks they suffered in their harvest and their inability to repay their loans borrowed for cultivation.
The reports also indicate that thousands of people in the drought hit areas are walking several miles to fetch water from reservoirs and rivers even which are increasingly becoming narrower due to drought.
Hydropower supply has also been affected as the water level in the hydro power reservoirs in the central hills have gone down drastically. As the water level has decreased to 38% in the hydro power reservoirs alternative measures have now been explored to deal with the situation by the Ministry of Power and Energy.
So, considering the severe drought situation in four decades it is the responsibility of each and every citizen in the country to act in a responsible manner using water and electricity sparingly.
According to Minister of Disaster Management, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, the international agencies such as the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) and United Nations Food Programme (UNFP) have also been contacted by the government over the prevailing drought condition in the country.
With the devastating drought paddy and vegetables are expected to go up in price with their production dropping drastically in the near future.
Apart from dealing with the immediate effects of drought by forming a drought mitigation task force, it is high time for the government to have created a task force with the combination of Security Forces, Meteorological Department, Ministries of Environment, Disaster Management, Power and Energy and the Ministries for Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Resources Management, to work in coordination to deal with all sorts of natural disasters.
Instead of praying for weather gods after experiencing natural disasters, Sri Lanka being a small country, all plans and strategies should be put in right place with right coordination to overcome all sorts of devastating effects of nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment