A review meeting on the impact of current weather conditions is to be held on August 17, Minister of Water Supply Susil Ranasinghe has said.
The meeting has been convened by the Cabinet Sub-Committee formed to mitigate the impact of El Niño conditions, with all relevant stakeholders taking part, the minister told NewsFirst.
Conditions expected to persist to April
The Department of Meteorology forecasts that the effects of the El Niño condition will continue until next April. Director General Ajith Wijeweera said dry weather conditions will prevail in early September.
That timeline extends the disruption well beyond the current Yala season and into the Maha cultivation cycle, which depends on the northeast monsoon.
Mounting strain on water supply
The review comes with the dry spell already registering across several indicators. More than 68,000 people in four districts have been affected by drinking water shortages, and national reservoir storage has fallen to 37% of capacity, with Ampara and Batticaloa among the worst hit.
Parliament’s Caucus on Climate separately urged the government to build anticipatory crisis governance mechanisms rather than manage climate shocks reactively, hearing an interim report from the Independent Expert Advisory Group on El Niño Resilience that proposed a Strategic Climate Resilience Framework.
Short-term relief is forecast for parts of the island, with the Met Department expecting showers in Sabaragamuwa and four districts today, though such spells do little to reverse a multi-month storage deficit.
Update, August 18: drinking water programme agreed at the meeting
A special programme has been launched to distribute drinking water in Batticaloa, Monaragala and Ampara, the President’s Media Division said in a statement carried by Ada Derana and Daily Mirror on Tuesday.
The decision was taken at the meeting, which Daily Mirror reported was held on Monday (17) — the date given in the preview above. The PMD described it as the third meeting of the Special Ministerial Sub-Committee and the Officials’ Committee appointed to address the impacts of El Niño, and said it was chaired by Environment Minister Dr. Dammika Patabendi at the Presidential Secretariat.
The distribution programme will be carried out through the respective District Secretaries, with officials to be briefed on the arrangements.
Committee members reviewed action plans submitted by the plantation, agriculture, wildlife and water resources management sectors, which are considered the most exposed to the current conditions. They also considered what would be required if the dry weather continues and groundwater levels fall further, and reviewed the Met Department’s El Niño forecasts.
The meeting stressed the importance of keeping the public informed through the media about developments. Minister of Housing, Construction and Water Supply Dr. Susil Ranasinghe and Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Wasantha Samarasinghe attended, alongside senior officials.
Ada Derana’s account did not carry the meeting date; Daily Mirror’s did.
