By Ifham Nizam
Then Water Supply, Drainage and Urban Development Ministry has taken steps to supply clean drinking water to areas prone to kidney diseases.
Addressing a briefing in Colombo on Monday in connection with the forthcoming World Water Day (March 22), Minister Rauff Hakeem said that the government was exploring the possibility of desalinating sea water in northern and eastern provinces.
He said his ministry was also working on the century old sewerage network of the country. It would be rehabilitated, he added
A ministry official said that work was now in progress to repair rehabilitate the sewerage network in the Colombo city and the existing 11 pumping stations, to have a new pumping station at Colombo Fort and to add new sewers for a 10 km stretch under a project funded by the Asian Development Bank.
He said that designing of the system and the laying of new sewers were in progress to develop and rehabilitate more than 100-year-old sewerage system of the Colombo City which was now in progress at a cost of USD 100 million.
The official stressed that the Colombo city was in a grave danger due to the ageing sewerage lines.