The President said the Moragahakanda Reservoir project is the largest multi-purpose development project in Sri Lanka. It can be considered as a giant leap for the economy especially in the agriculture and irrigation sectors.“This is undoubtedly a fulfillment of a long felt need of the people, who have been affected by scarcity of water in the Dry Zone,” President Sirisena said.
The Moragahakanda Reservoir consists of five spill gates which open automatically when the water level reaches the 185.5 metre level from the sea level.The water released from the giant Moragahakanda Reservoir feeds hundreds of major and minor tanks in the Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee and Matale districts and Giritale, Minneriya, Kawudulla and Parakrama Samudraya tanks. Besides, water will be utilised to end the agriculture and industrial water scarcity of the Madirigiriya area.
The Moragahakanda-Kaluganga Development Project which is a major component of the Mahaweli Master Plan has been progressing steadily and is to improve irrigation facilities to existing water scarce farmlands (82,000ha) and most importantly open up new land (5000ha) for agriculture development in the Northern, North Central, Eastern and North Western Provinces.
“The Project will generate 25MW of hydro-power to the National Grid. Increasing inland fish production, provision of domestic and industrial water requirements, Eco tourism and effective flood control are the other targets of the project,” Coordinating Officer of Moragahakanda project P.G. Dayananda said.
“It is estimated that the total project cost can be regained within three years once the project is completed. The Moragahakanda and Kalu Ganga Reservoirs, which utilise water from the Amban Ganga as the feeder river, is ready to open a new chapter in the country’s agriculture sector,” Dayananda added.
Meanwhile, the construction of the Kalu Ganga irrigation project, which comes under the mega Moragahakanda and Kalu Ganga Multipurpose Irrigation Development Scheme, is nearing completion by now. Residential Engineer of Kaluganga Development Project Hemantha Dedigama said that 90 per cent of construction work of the project has already been completed and it has been planned to hand over the project to the government by December 25. “But it will take a few months for the entire project to be completed,” Dedigama said. “The Kalu Ganga irrigation project consists of two dams, including a Main Dam and a Saddle Dam. The construction of the both dams has already been completed.
Accordingly, 90 per cent of the construction of the entire project has been completed,” Dedigama said.
“The water filling has commenced and it is estimated that the reservoir would be completely filled by January 2019,” he said. “The water capacity of the Kalu Ganga Reservoir is 248 million cubic metres and of the capacity 8 per cent (20 million cubic meters) has already been filled. The reservoir will be filled up to 218 meters from sea level and the water level at present is 170 meters from sea level,” he said.
