No Paddy cultivation in flooded paddy fields due to Nilwala River salinity barrier – Agriculture Minister

During rainy weather, about 4,000 hectares of paddy fields around the Nilwala River are constantly flooded and damaged due to flooding caused by the salinity barrier of the Nilwala River.

Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industry Mahinda Amaraweera directed the Department of Agricultural Development on Wednesday (17) to pay close attention to this matter. The Minister also stated that a large number of farmers have complained to him about crop damage due to flooding.

For many years now, 4,000 hectares of paddy fields in the Matara district have been regularly flooded, due to which the farmers have lost many crops and the Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board has taken steps to compensate the farmers in all those cases. It has been revealed that the cause of these floods around the Nilwala River is the salinity barrier used to prevent the sea water from entering the Nilwala River. If this salinity barrier is removed, people of this District will also have insufficient drinking water due to sea water contaminating the Nilwala River.

Therefore, taking all these matters into consideration, the Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries informed the officials of the Department of Agricultural Development to pay attention to the appropriateness of paddy cultivation in these paddy fields which are further under flood.

A discussion on this matter was held on Wednesday (17) afternoon at the Ministry of Agriculture and Plantation Industries, with the Minister and Agrarian Development Department officials in attendance.

A committee has been appointed as per the decision of the Cabinet to explore whether the farmers of these paddy fields are to be compensated and the said paddy lands handed over to the government. However, no final decision has been taken in this regard.

The Agrarian Development Department pointed out that paddy cultivation should not be expanded in these paddy lands as there is a high possibility of heavy rains in the coming cropping seasons as well.

Hence, it was decided to prepare a program to encourage farmers to cultivate crops other than paddy and to provide the necessary financial and technical facilities to the farmers.

Agrarian Development Commissioner General A.M.H.L. Abeyratne and a group of officials participated.

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