Sri Lanka’s safe drinking water supply is being maintained at high standards comparing to several other countries in the South Asian region, an international research revealed.
National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWS&DB) has achieved the safe drinking water supply coverage of 90.9 per cent and piped sewerage coverage 3.3 per cent as at end April 2019.
This achievement was possible with government support on debt servicing such as 50 per cent of urban project, 75 per cent on rural projects and 100 per cent on CKD reduction projects.
NWS&DB has already launched 343 water supply schemes and 02 projects are in the pipeline.
Ministry of Finance has granted approval for the borrowing power to NWS&DB to raise funds for locally funded projects of Rs. 83.91 billion and foreign-funded projects worth of USD 1,155.37 million and Euro 170.03 million as at end April 2019.
Even though the revenue for the first four months in 2019 increased by 7 per cent to Rs. 7,850 million, NWS&DB has incurred a loss of Rs. 203 million for the first 4 months of 2019 as against the profit of Rs. 372 million for the same period in 2018.
The government has provided capital infusion amounting to Rs. 1,255 million along with the Treasury Guarantees amounting to Rs. 182,721.92 million as at end April 2019 considering the liquidity issues faced by the entity due to non-revision of tariff since 2012.
The current Non-Revenue Water (NRW) is at 24.84 per cent which is a positive improvement over the previous year position of 25.49 per cent.
The board has taken initiatives to establish a NRW cell to monitor and manage NRW islandwide with a pro-active intervention and upgrade the Regional Support Centres as Strategic Business Unit to manage assets and control the NRW below 18 per cent.
However, the Board faces challenges in meeting adequate investments to achieve the water supply and sewerage coverage as targeted.
(LI)