News
Dilemma over last drops of water — food production or power generation
View(s):By Sandun Jayawardana
While farmers continue to agitate, demanding that water be released from the Samanalawewa to the Udawalawa Reservoir to irrigate their paddy fields, the possibility of having to impose power cuts across the Southern Province in this event has resulted in the Cabinet preferring to keep the water for power generation purposes thus far.
Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera told the Sunday Times that he and Irrigation Minister Roshan Ranasinghe “lobbied vigorously” at last week’s Cabinet meeting for water from the Samanalawewa Reservoir to be released for irrigation purposes. The majority of the Cabinet, however, was of the view that priority should be given to hydropower generation, Mr. Amaraweera said. “We have to bow to the collective decision of the Cabinet, but we continue to hope that water can be released to the farmers. Even if we release some water tomorrow, we can minimise the damage,” he said. 
Mr. Amaraweera said total damage to paddy cultivation alone in the event water is not released is estimated at Rs. 18 billion. Along with damage to supplementary crops in the region, total losses could amount to as much as Rs. 30 billion, he said. The destruction of paddy cultivation could also lead to a food shortage in the coming months, noted the minister.
The Cabinet has also decided to pay compensation to farmers for any crop damage they suffer.
Minister Ranasinghe, meanwhile, told the media on Wednesday that 25,000 hectares of cultivated paddy lands and 8,000 hectares of supplementary crops in the Walawa region are in danger of being destroyed if water is not released.
“As the son of a farmer, this is something that I cannot stand by and watch. It is something that pains me deeply,” he told journalists during a media briefing at the Presidential Media Centre.
Mr. Ranasinghe said it was his personal belief that priority had to be given to the farmers. In that respect, he acknowledged that he held a different view from that of Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekara.
Meanwhile, some government MPs from the affected region have expressed frustration over the manner in which the government has handled the issue. Deputy Speaker Ajith Rajapakse who represents the Hambantota District, said the usual practice of those in political authority was to hold an honest discussion over the problem and reach consensus. “Unfortunately, it seems to us that in this case, we are being forced into accepting the version given by officials of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB).”
Mr. Rajapakse noted that CEB officials have admitted that even if water is not released for irrigation purposes, the water at the Samanalawewa Reservoir will only be sufficient to produce electricity for about 20 more days. In the event there is no rain during that period, the CEB will still be in a position where the hydropower plant will not be able to generate electricity. If that is the case, the Deputy Speaker questioned whether it would not be better to act now and save thousands of acres of paddy lands, even if it means managing through a power cut for the Southern Province.
Mr. Rajapakse refused to put the blame on ministers over the crisis, saying the fault lay with officials who were advising them on how to manage the situation. He said there was still time for a last-minute intervention to save the paddy lands from disaster.
CEB sources revealed that the Board has presented several options to the government on how to navigate the situation at the Samanalawewa Reservoir. One option is to release the amount of water requested by the farmers and go for emergency power purchases to ensure uninterrupted power. Another option is not to release any water and continue generating hydropower from Samanalawewa. A third option is to release the water and implement scheduled power cuts across the Southern region, possibly lasting for about three hours a day.
The CEB too acknowledges that farmers should be given priority, said a senior CEB official speaking on the condition of anonymity. The issue for hydropower generation, however, is that if water is released for the farmers, the CEB will not be able to meet peak electricity demand in the region after about 10 days, said the official. This would mean that either it would have to turn to emergency power or impose power cuts to manage the situation.
Nevertheless, the official acknowledged that if there is no rain even towards the end of September, the power sector too could reach a crisis situation that would then affect the entire national grid. Water levels at hydropower reservoirs have now reached the levels they dipped to in 2019, which was the worst in recent times. “Fortunately, we had some rain in August that year, but the forecast this year is far less promising.”
If water is released to the farmers and the government decides against emergency power purchases, the power cuts will only affect the Southern region for now, said Dhanushka Parakramasinghe, Vice President of the CEB Engineers’ Union. He noted that work on two new transmission lines for the region had come to a halt—one due to a court case and the other due to a halt in funding by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) after the economic crisis. He noted that this issue would not have arisen had these transmission lines been completed. Another issue that the union has repeatedly cited is the failure to build any new power plants for years, Mr. Parakramasinghe added.
In its reluctance to release water to farmers, the government is also weighed down by its own rhetoric from earlier this year. In its long-drawn-out battle with the power sector regulator Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) over a 66% electricity tariff hike, ministers, including Minister Wijesekara, insisted that the government would be able to provide uninterrupted power once the tariff hike was approved. The main justification given by the government for the tariff hike in February was that it would spell an end to power cuts that had lasted for a year.
Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekara was unavailable for comment.
The best way to say that you found the home of your dreams is by finding it on Hitad.lk. We have listings for apartments for sale or rent in Sri Lanka, no matter what locale you're looking for! Whether you live in Colombo, Galle, Kandy, Matara, Jaffna and more - we've got them all!