Nilwala and Gin Ganga water for H'tota fields

Raja Waidyasekera Tissamaharama special correspondent

The Uma Oya reservoir project will be completed in another 4 years.

Plans are also afoot to divert excess water from the Nilwala and Gin Ganga to Hambantota district to boost agriculture said Irrigation Water Management, Ports and Aviation Minister Chamal Rajapaksa.

The Minister was addressing the gathering at a ceremony held at the Hungama Vijayaba Maha Vidyalaya to mark the distribution of 7500 land permits among landless peasants in the Hambantota district under the national program of providing 100,000 land permits.

Earlier President Mahinda Rajapaksa addressed the gathering via satellite.Minister Chamal Rajapaksa said that when late Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike set up a government in 1956 the late D.A. Rajapaksa was the Deputy Minister of Lands and Land Development. He said a model industrial estate will be set up in Moneragala district to provide educated jobless youth jobs to enable them to lead self reliant lives.

The Minister said the water of the Weheragala reservoir will be released to the Lunugamwehera reservoir by April next year.

He said the land value of Hambantota has risen to about rupees four lakhs a perch. That is due to the mammoth development activities now lunched in the district.

The Minister of Water Supply Mahinda Amaraweera said that inheritance of a plot of land to live and a ownership for that land is a concept of Mahinda Chintana.He said that in the ancient days Sri Lanka exported maize, green gram, cowpea and Kurakkan. Later we had to import them from foreign countries.

But now we are self sufficient in these food items due to the implementation of Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu cultivation war.

Southern Province Chief Minister Shan Vijayalal De Silva said that in the ancient past all land belonged to the king who ruled the country.

Today the ownership of lands are being vested in the people with an ownership document.

Provincial Minister of Agriculture, Land, Irrigation and Animal Production SPC Hemal Gunasekera said that when he assumed duties in 2004 and implemented the program of providing land ownership permits those opposed to it tried to obstruct him. He said it was the Chief Minister and a few others who supported the program providing him with a tower of strength.