Sri Lanka rulers provide more water to protesting villagers

The Hapag-Lloyd delegation including, Capt. Prateek Gandhi – Director Operations, Hapag-Lloyd, Regional Office, Dubai,Mr. Faheem Mir – Manager - Operations, Hapag-Lloyd, Regional Office, Dubai,Mr. Lalith Witanachchi – Vice President, Hapag-Lloyd Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, Mr. Mindaka Dassanayake – General Manager, Hapag-Lloyd Lanka (Pvt) Ltd.,Mr. Rohan Ranasinghe – Terminal Operations Manager, Hapag-Lloyd AG and Mr. Iqram Cuttilan – Managing Director, Aitken Spence Shipping Ltd poses for a pic with SLPA’s Chairman -Admiral Sirimewan Ranasinghe and the Managing Director - Eng. Ganaka Hemachandra. SLPA's Vice Chairman - Eng. Herath M.P. Jayawardhana, Director (Operations) - Mrs. G. Zavia Miskin and Director (Marketing and BD) - Mr. H J K U Kumara are also present.

Aug 02, 2013 (LBO) - Elected representatives of Sri Lanka's Gampaha district met Friday and decided to increase the distribution of water by bowser to villagers who were protesting about tainted water, one whom was shot dead by security forces. Sri Lanka's economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa had convened a meeting of factions of elected representative groups on Friday to help solve the problem.

Villagers near Weliweriya, Gampaha, a district bordering Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, had protested claiming that effluents from a factory polluted ground water, which the firm in question claimed were not borne out by technical reports.

The economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa had convened a meeting of politicians representing Gampaha, government officials and representatives from the ministries of environment, health and water

At the meeting it was decided to provide 10 tractor trailers and six more bowsers have been deployed to provide 300 water tanks to 12 villages.

Minister Rajapaksa had asked the village of Rathupaswala to be provided with pipe-borne water.

"He also stressed the need for protecting the environment and raising the people’s living standards parallel to these measures," the economic deve