News
An uphill battle for weary war veterans
View(s):Disabled soldiers, some lacking arms or legs, have for the past 15 years often been forced to carry their daily water needs uphill from kilometres away because the housing scheme they are settled in has uncertain water supply and lies at the end of an unmade road.
Residents say they are disheartened by problems that have arisen over a well dug for them in 2000. Pix by Indika Handuwala.
The 13 families of these disabled heroes, who are living in the Govinna Rana Viru of Horana are courageously pursuing their lives even though they say the local governing bodies have not so far provided adequate water and road facilities to their housing scheme despite directives from the Ministry of Public Order.
The residents say they are disheartened by problems that have arisen over a water well dug for them in 2000 on a neighbouring private property. The army had constructed a well on that property for the residents as the housing scheme is on a hill with a deep layer of rock beneath the soil surface that made it too expensive to dig a well there.
One resident said the well dried up quickly in times of drought, leaving the soldiers’ families waterless unless they trudged farther to find water. They say the well is a mere pit dug with a backhoe by a private contractor working for the army.
Furthermore, after providing a pump-driven waterline from the well to the house of the property owner in gratitude for being allowed to use the well, the residents said they had been treated diabolically by the landowner. They say they are pressured into switching on their pump at the well to send water to the owner’s house even in times of drought, regardless of their own needs.
One disabled soldier said residents have to pay an electricity bill of Rs. 3,500– 4,000 a month for using the pump provide water for themselves and to the residence of the owner on top of paying their home power bills.
Local government bodies are yet to provide facilities to disabled heroesliving in the Govinna Rana Viru of Horana.
The residents said that the Bulathsinhala Divisional Secretariat had received continual notifications since 2008 from the Sri Lanka Army’s Directorate of Welfare and the Ministry of Public Order to meet their needs but had failed to obtain a formal assurance from the neighbouring land owner to maintain the well.
The residents said the army and the Ministry of Public Order had instructed the Horana office of the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (WSDB) to supply water to their homes from the Kalu Ganga Water Supply Project. The directives had come from former ministers Nirmala Kotalawala and Kumara Welgama.
The Horana NWSDB had told the residents that the government had not allocated sufficient funding for such a project.
When the Sunday Times inquired, a senior officer in Horana WSDB said the water pressure in the existing pipeline from the project would not be sufficient to distribute water to the residences up on the hill. He said the NWSDB plans to provide water to the Govinna area with a new pipeline from Ilimbe to the Govinna junction in Horana following the completion of the Ihala Naragala bridge.
Until then, the residents are compelled to travel more than 5km from the housing scheme to find water from neighbouring lands, carrying barrels filled with water on their shoulders and ascending the hill to reach their houses despite some having only one hand or leg as a result of their war wounds.Many have been injured after falling when carrying water barrels, and recently a disabled soldier who lost an arm during the war broke his collar bone and shoulder while carrying a barrel of water up the hill to his residence.
Residents are compelled to find water from neighbouring lands
During the wet season the bottom part of the road gets flooded and dangerous for the disabled soldiers and their children to use as they travel to work, school or hospital to attend therapy sessions for their injuries.
Only 180m of 300m of the road has a hard paved surface. A senior officer from the army’s Directorate of Welfare told the Sunday Times that high-ranking officials have planned to visit the Govinna Rana Viru housing scheme next month to attend to the residents’ concerns. He added that the Directorate has to oversee 27 Rana Viru housing schemes spread around the country, consisting approximately 1100 families of disabled soldiers.
