Key to water problem of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province lies in management, says expert

Agriculture accounted for about two-thirds of the entire water demand of the Province, according to an expert.

The of Sri Lanka, which is gradually , is popularly perceived to be a water deficit region. But, the problem lies not in shortage of water resources but in lack of proper management of the available resources, according to S.S. Sivakumar, professor of civil engineering, University of Jaffna. Though the province received, on an average, 120 cm of rainfall annually, the problem of water quality in Jaffna peninsula had assumed the proportions of a crisis because towns had now become more populous than in the past, as a result of the civil war, and the “contaminated source of groundwater” was being used for drinking, sewage disposal and agriculture, Dr. Sivakumar told The Hindu over the phone on Thursday evening. In the last five years, he served as a member of a few official committees formed by the Sri Lankan government including one on the water sector of the North.