Three seawater desalination projects are currently being implemented under the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, Housing, Construction and Water Supply Minister Dr. Susil Ranasinghe told Parliament on Thursday, 10 September.
He was setting out the government’s preparedness for the prevailing dry weather, the Daily Mirror reported.
Where the country’s water comes from
The Minister gave a breakdown of the roughly 3 million cubic metres the NWSDB treats and distributes each day:
| Source | Daily volume | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Rivers, streams and other freshwater | ~2,200,000 m³ | ~74% |
| Reservoirs (59) | ~712,000 m³ | ~24% |
| Groundwater sources (59) | ~77,000 m³ | ~2.6% |
The three figures sum to about 2.99 million cubic metres, which reconciles with the 3 million total he gave.
What the breakdown actually shows
The striking number is not the desalination plants but the 74%. Nearly three-quarters of treated public supply is drawn from flowing surface water — rivers and streams — which is the source category most immediately exposed to a rainfall deficit. Reservoirs, which hold a buffer across a dry spell, supply under a quarter, and groundwater under 3%.
That is the context in which the desalination projects belong: seawater is the only input in the mix that is indifferent to rainfall. Three plants, however, are unlikely to shift a 3 million cubic metre daily balance by much in the near term — none of the reported figures suggests desalination is yet a material share of supply.
The dry-weather concern is a live one for the sector. Agriculture officials have already told farmers to use water sparingly through the Yala season, and the energy ministry has separately been managing El Niño-driven pressure on generation.
Not reported
The report does not say where the three desalination projects are located, what they cost, who funds them, what capacity they will add, or when they come on line. It gives no target for reducing dependence on surface water, and no figure for how far current reservoir storage has fallen. The coincidence of 59 groundwater sources and 59 reservoirs is as the Minister’s figures were reported; no outlet queries it. Ada Derana, which routinely covers ministry statements in the chamber, has been unreachable behind a CloudFront 403 for a fifteenth consecutive cycle, and no other newsroom had filed on the statement at the time of writing.
