• Focus on agri sector reservoir water storage 

Members of the Food Policy and Security Committee have discussed the measures that should be taken and the preparedness required to mitigate any potential impacts on Sri Lanka arising from the impending global El Niño phenomenon.

Discussions were held at a meeting of the Committee at the Presidential Secretariat. The meeting took place under the Co-Chairpersonship of the Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation Minister, K D Lal Kantha and the Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Minister, Wasantha Samarasinghe. 

During the meeting, particular attention was given to the possible effects of El Niño on the agricultural sector.  Discussions also focused on the need to ensure adequate water storage in reservoirs for the forthcoming Yala cultivation season and to safeguard drinking water supplies. 

Samarasinghe instructed officials to obtain the views and recommendations of the relevant institutions on these matters.

It was further decided to convene a special meeting of the Committee in the near future to continue discussions on the issue. The relevant line agencies, including the Agriculture Ministry, the Agriculture Department, the Mahaweli Authority and the Irrigation Department, were instructed to prepare and submit comprehensive plans outlining measures to address the potential impacts of the El Niño phenomenon.

The Ministers stated that plans were already in place to effectively manage this potential global challenge. They emphasised that the Government was giving special attention to the matter. 

Samarasinghe further pointed out that natural disasters cannot be predicted with certainty and stressed the importance of developing contingency plans in advance to respond effectively to any eventuality. 

As a possible El Niño situation looms in the coming months, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) is meanwhile moving ahead with a strategic plan to increase the capacity of existing treatment plants and is digging deep wells near them to extract more groundwater. Speaking to The Daily Morning, the NWSDB Chairperson Chandana Bandara said that necessary proactive methods are being taken to cope with possible droughts and other consequences of El Niño. “The prediction is that towards the end of next month (July), August and the first weeks of September will be the months that El Niño will be affecting to a grave extent, which means that it will be around for a period of two months. That is what the Meteorology Department and the other environmentalists have predicted. We don’t have enough time to build new water treatment plants or any other water resources this soon. Our plan is to optimise the use of the existing water plants,” he added. He said that the NWSDB has over 343 water supplying projects all over the country and that they are planning to develop the existing sources in a way that it could be giving the utmost production. “We have a separate groundwater section under the Board. We are expecting to buy some more equipment. We are trying to extract the groundwater as much as possible and we have started digging some deep wells closer to our water plants,” he further said.

He also cautioned that the careful use of water in these days will also help in the future, and that the NWSDB has started an awareness programme series to make the public aware of the situation and to urge them to conserve water. “In the domestic units also, water goes to waste, but, there are also many public places such as schools, universities, hospitals and also some offices that cause the same. The Environmental and Social Unit of the NWSDB has planned awareness programmes for these spaces. Our sociologists are working in order to reduce the water wastage by awareness,” he concluded.

His comments come in the wake of the Department having warned of a possible El Niño situation in the coming months. The Acting Director General of Meteorology Ajith Wijemannage cautioned last week that Sri Lanka is expected to experience significantly hotter-than-normal weather conditions during July and August of this year (2026) as the developing El Niño phenomenon begins to influence the global climate. He had also noted that the dry spell and higher temperatures could place pressure on water resources, agriculture, power generation and public health in the coming months if the water resources are not optimised carefully.