RIYADH: The Kingdom will contribute $46 million for the construction of a dam in Sri Lanka.
A four-member delegation headed by S. Amarasekera, secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture Development and Agrarian Services arrived here Sunday to discuss the technical details of the project and prepare a draft agreement with the Saudi Fund For Development (SFD). The agreement will be signed later in Colombo.
“This is the seventh financial facility offered by the SFD for infrastructure development in Sri Lanka,” Abdullah Al-Shedokhi, project officer of SFD told the Daily News on Sunday. The project, he said, is known as the Moragahakande-Kaluganga reservoir project and is to be implemented by the Mahaweli Authority with co-funding from Kuwait Fund and Sri Lankan government.
The project costing $113 million, will be paid for by SFD ($46 million), the Kuwait Fund ($37 million) and the Sri Lanka government ($30 million).
The Moragahakande-Kaluganga reservoir project is a mega-irrigation scheme implemented by the Sri Lanka government in order to provide water to farmers in the eastern province during the dry season. It is expected to fully address the irrigation needs of the people in Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura, Trincomalee and Matale districts and provide drinking water for all in those districts. A hydropower station with a capacity of 20 MW will be set up under the Moragahakanda reservoir project.
In 2008, SFD provided SR75 million for the construction of a Epilepsy Hospital in Colombo and SR11 million to provide an extension to the Neuro-Trauma Centre at the Colombo General Hospital.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia provided a concessional loan of SR 45 million for the construction of the Neuro-Trauma Centre at the Colombo General Hospital in 2002 and the construction of the building is already completed.
The SFD has provided the island with project loans on three previous occasions. It offered SR99.9 million for the second stage of the water supply and sewage project and gave SR48.1 million for the Mahaweli Ganga Development Project System B in 1981.
