Water Sector Opportunities

Over the past decade, some remarkable achievements have made in Sri Lanka's water supply and sanitation sector. Continued efforts by the government to improve national indicators of social development have put the country ahead of most other South Asian countries.

The provision of drinking water supply and sanitation is a government priority. The proportion of the population that should have access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation services have set periodic targets.

Water resource management has become an important discussion point and is vital for economic development. Only 45% of the population has access to the pipe-borne water supply. Waterways have also been polluted, thereby compounding the problem of providing safe drinking water to all. The state intends to meet this challenge and ensure 100% of the population supplied with clean and safe drinking and pipe-borne water. The newly elected government have a range of upcoming tenders in the water sector:

·         There will be a tender to introduce a water storage mechanism for all new houses located in water-scarce areas to ensure groundwater is not misused.

·         The government will ensure that all water resources are managed and utilized efficiently for agriculture by adopting drip irrigation and other modern techniques. To facilitate this process, we will introduce low-cost interest rate loans and tax relief.

·         They will take necessary actions to create an environment where rivers, lakes, and reservoirs/tanks are free from chemicals, pesticides, and other harmful chemicals.

·         The government ensures that all citizens of this country will have access to pure drinking water around the clock contained by the next three years. They will do this by expanding and improving the efficiency of the current projects carried out by the Sri Lanka Water Board and Community Water Projects. They will also introduce new legislation to establish accurate water recycling processes for all industrial and commercial constructions.

·         Sri Lankan government spends billions of money every year to manage water-related disasters.  Such disasters include those due to the flooding in the areas of Kelani, Kalu, Gin, and Nilwala rivers and the droughts in the dry regions of the country.

Therefore, they will utilize this money to proactively manage these situations by developing a flood control mechanism with prevention and forewarning systems and water storage and pumping methods to dry areas through drainage and canals systems. They will form a committee consists of experts to execute this project by 2025.

The National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB), Sri Lanka's primary water supply and sanitation service, had an estimated 840,000 total water connexions in 2004.

It doubled this number by the end of 2013.

Another feature of the development of the water supply sector in Sri Lanka is the increased use of water supply systems operated by the government. In the 1980s, apart from a few urban pipe-borne water-supply networks, small gravity systems and deep wells represented the majority of the rural population.

A series of projects were initiated at the beginning of 1990 to extend district-level agricultural water supply systems to be run by the local communities themselves — so-called community-based organizational schemes. These systems provided an additional 500,000 connexions to the water supply.

OSL Take:  The interest shown by the Sri Lankan government at modern technology to address the issued faced by the country due to droughts has created new opportunities. Sri Lanka’s development program that covers the entire island includes projects of different levels covering all vital economic sectors. Therefore, foreign businesses/investors could explorebusiness/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s development program.
VBS/AT/26122019/Z_TB1