Drought affects over 87,000 families in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

The Daily News (Sri Lanka): Over 87,000 families have been affected due to the drought in the Anuradhapura district, Anuradhapura Government Agent Mahinda Senevirathne said. According to the Government Agent 43,320 families have been badly affected while 2,6671 families are facing medium scale cultivation damage.

He said in consultation with the authorities, steps have been taken to provide relief to affected families. "It has been planned to use the man power of these families t
o attend to minor repairs to tanks, irrigation canals, anicuts and agriculture roads in the rural areas. Each person is given 22 days of work on basis of for hours for a day being paid Rs. 500 per working day as a livelihood support to face the challenge of the drought," Seneviratne said.

The Government Agent emphasised that the Divisional Secretaries and the grass roots level field officers were engaged in the implementation of drought relief program under the supervision of officials of the Disaster Management Ministry.

Meanwhile, families will receive dry food rations including sugar, wheat flour, rice, coconut oil and dhal from today. The Government Agent said he has completed holding meetings with farmers adding that the farmers had agreed to minimise paddy cultivation during the 2014 Yala and cultivate more additional food crops such as green gram, cowpea , undu, gingelly, soya and maize.He stated that even the cultivation of additional food crops will be limited because of the shortage of water in tanks. ..

A stupa in Anuradhapura, shot by Saqib Qayyum, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license