The efficiency of the local governance in water resources management of the Moneragala district, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sufficient provision of water for the entire population in the country has become a challenging task of the government and all sector institutions. Local Authorities (LAs) in the country particularly the Pradeshiya Sabhas (PS) are one of the major institutions actively engaged in water supply, especially in drinking water supply in rural areas. The involvement of the PS in planning and constructions of water supply is limited due to various reasons while their importance of involvement in management of water supply schemes is higher. This research on the above theme was executed in the Moneragala district located in the Uva province and included in the dry zone of the country, comprising three significant agro-environmental and two climatic zones. Today the water is almost the only scarce resource in this fruitful agro land. Contrary to the demand, water availability and hence accomplishing people’s necessities are becoming more and more difficult. Especially since 1980’s the people in the Moneragala Secretariat Division (SD) have continuously been suffering from water scarcity. In this research, integrated ferocious causatives which have brought about in this sour effect, such as .absence of a proper maneuvering of the present natural resources in a sustainable manner towards a foreseeable future preventing their extreme exploitation, unavailability of a well-ventured, properly organized authority to manage water resource and water supply, lack of attempts by the present authorities to discover and draw on fruitful water resources in a manner of satisfying optimal geological parameters, and, lack of facilitating and provisioning by the relevant authorities for the projects initiated by CBOs employing productive water resources in a scientific manner, and applicable effective solutions to those problems are experimentally analyzed. In this purpose, we have used the integrated research methodology. While proceeding with discussion, a theoretical framework of rational decision making was used to examine the series of events described there