Twenty four districts – that is the number of areas in Sri Lanka which are suffering, day in -day out, without clean drinking water.

While a majority of the nation is continuing to suffer without the most essential need, News 1st received a disturbing report.

Thousands of litres of purified, clean water – going to complete waste during the past three months.

There is a pipeline which runs from Hambantota to Meegahajadura which carries purified water from Walawe River to the Hambantota City. The pipeline is leaking and water, clean water, is being wasted away.

Following is a conversation between a News 1st reporter and a group of villagers..

Question: Do you have water to drink?

Female: No. There is no water.

Q: Where is the water going?

F: That is the question.

Male #1: They have the ability to provide the water but they let it go to waste into the fields.

Male #2: Two villages do not have water to drink. The people living in those villages have sent all the relevant documentation to the water board in Hambantota asking for water. They say they do not have the adequate pressure to provide water to these two villages. Why can’t they provide this water to these villages? Isn’t this a crime?

The water wasted in this leak is taken for expressway projects via bowsers.

With the drought that has plagued these villages, crops and cultivation have also been severely affected due to the lack of water.

Meanwhile, the water that is wasted in this leak, is flowing into nearby fields in the area which are being cultivated.

According to the villagers, there is no other place to obtain water to cultivate the fields and the only way they are receiving water, is from the leak.

The tank on the other side of the fields has dried up as a result of the ongoing drought.

“The fields are inundated with water for about two kilometres. With the drought, it is a miracle as to how we have this much water.” said a villager.

Are the people who hold power blind to the colossal wastage?

Shouldn’t legal action be taken against such heinous crimes?

News 1st will expose the perpetrators responsible for such acts, to the public.

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