A Critical view of the conception of the Mahaweli Development Scheme (MDS)



            In 1931, after Mr. D.S. Senanayake became the minister of lands and agriculture in the state council, maintenance work on some ancient irrigation works commenced and since 1933, the establishment of colonization schemes started with the first being at Minneriya. The  maintenance of the anicuts and channels at Elahera and Angamedilla on  the Amban Ganga to feed Minneriya and Parakarama Samudra respectively and of the Minipe anicut and channel on the Mahaweli Ganga, used the Mahaweli waters for dryzone agriculture again, as in ancient times. After the death of Mr. D.S. Senanayake in 1952, Mr. Duddly Senanayake became the prime minister and under his premiership, the Irrigation Department started the collection of data, the preliminary surveys and investigations, in the early 1950s, for the use of the Mahaweli Ganga for irrigation and hydro power, which is therefore the starting point of the 'modern' Mahaweli Development Scheme.
            From 1958 to 1961, which is during the first Sri Lanka Freedom party Government, the United States Operation Mission (USOM), which several years later was renamed ' USAID', carried out studies for the use of the Mahaweli resources for irrigation and hydro power, even when the Ceylon Irrigation Department was far ahead on the same assignment!
            In 1959, the preliminary report on the development of the Mahaweli Ganga was published by the Irrigation Department. In 1961, the USOM also made its report, with proposals for the development of the Mahaweli Ganga resources. Without any doubt, they would have extracted information from the Report of the Irrigation Department for their own report!
            The following (I to VI ) are extracts from the ' Introduction' in page 2 of the 1968 General project report on the Mahaweli, prepared by the Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations Organization (FAO). My comments appear within brackets.
    I.          The Canadian Hunting and Survey Corporation (CHSC) also conducted investigations on the Mahaweli Resource Possibilities in 1961-62. (What madness by the government!  Getting another set of foreigners to poke their fingers into the Mahaweli when Ceylon had an Irrigation Department, a Department of Surveys and an Electricity Department which could have handled these assignments!)

   II.        ' In 1963, the Government of Ceylon requested the Special Fund of the United Nations (UNDP/SF) to explore the possibilities for the complete utilization of water resources of the Mahaweli Ganga for the purpose of irrigation and hydro power. (The Ceylon government is still tied to the Apron strings of colonial nannies!)

 III.       ' The UNDP/ SF appointed the FAO to perform this survey and the UNDP/SF, FAO and the Government of Ceylon signed an agreement. The survey was planned in two stages. The first stage, to prepare a comprehensive study of the river basins included in the project area and a master plan. The second stage, to provide the feasibility study for the selected first phase of the project development.'

 IV.       The duration of the survey was accepted as 4 years, 2 years for each stage. A team of FAO experts in collaboration with the Government  of Ceylon completed both stages between 1965 and 1968.''  This survey by the FAO was preceded by several preliminary studies of separate parts of the project area of these, the most significant were the studies by the USOM, performed in 1958-61 and the investigation done by the CHSC in 1961-62 (The 1959 Report by the Ceylon Irrigation Department has been completely ignored in the Mahaweli project report compiled by the project manager, P.G. Fialkovsky, as there is no mention of it in the Introduction. The Irrigation department report gives basic data which is of use to ascertain the water yield that can be expected from the Mahaweli, from records maintained by the Department for several years. It appears that the duties of the Heads of the Departments of Irrigation and Survey was only to handover files, reports and maps to the FAO Committee of foreigners. Further, the Head of the ' Ceylon' Committee, (as the committee of Sri Lankans is named in the General Report. was another foreigner, A Gromov, the U.N. representative in Ceylon, although Hon. Mr. C.P.De Silva, being a senior and powerful minister in the Government, Minister of Lands Irrigation and Power, and also a member of the ' Ceylon Committee,' could easily have led the ' Ceylon Committee' in keeping upto his position, authority and dignity. This shows that foreigners wanted to have absolute control on the planning of the whole Mahaweli Project to which the Ceylon Committee and the Government gave in meekly.

  V.        ' The appreciable role of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in setting up the investigations under the Mahaweli Ganga Survey must be emphasized. I.B.R.D. missions visited the project twice before the field work was started by FAO. In May 1961, the mission pointed out the significance of the Project, stating that it is a promising multipurpose scheme to meet Ceylon's economic needs.' In June 1962, the second I.B.R.D. Mission determined the possibility of developing the project by stages and suggested the review of available data and further investigations to probe the problem more deeply.
   (This final paragraph of the ' Introduction' of the General Project Report, leads one to conclude that the MDS was a dictate of the I.B.R.D, as the I.B.R.D. had decided what to do and the Government of Ceylon of the period had only meekly followed its dictates as for example. (1) allowing the CHSC to do further investigations, (2) The Ceylon Government requesting the UNDP / SF to explore the possibility for the full utilization of the Mahaweli Ganga for the purpose of irrigation and hydropower, (3) The subsequent train of events such as the Government signing agreements with the UNDP/ SF and the FAO etc. )
            The sub - servience shown by the ' Ceylon (Sri Lanka) government to the IBRD on the MDS planning is a terrible disgrace to Sri Lanka, since Sri Lanka has from the time of King Dutugemunu (161 to 137 BC) fought against all foreign powers to maintain its liberty and was self-reliant to develop its own agricultural economy as shown by the ancient irrigation works of Sri Lanka, which has no parallel anywhere in the world. 

Yasantha De Silva
B.Sc. (Agriculture)

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