The National Water Resources Board says new laws will be introduced to regulate the extraction of groundwater for commercial purposes, NewsFirst reported.
Chairman R.M.S. Bandara said steps will be taken to amend the Water Resources Board Act for this purpose. Coinciding with this year’s National Environment Week, June 3 has been designated as Water and Water Sources Conservation Day, and the board has organised programmes around the theme.
The intervention follows long-running concern that unregulated commercial extraction — particularly by bottled-water firms, large agricultural users and some industrial operations — has put pressure on aquifers across the dry zone. Earlier statutory work moved through the draft Water Resources Board Act amendment but stopped short of a fully enforceable commercial-permitting framework.
The new direction also lands in a year of broader water-policy attention. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s drinking water programme across 14 districts and the groundwater discovery at Mananketiya in Matara highlighted both supply gaps and rising commercial competition for the country’s underground reserves.
Bandara did not provide a timeline for the amendment or detail on whether the new framework will introduce extraction permits, volume caps, or aquifer-specific monitoring. He said further programmes have been scheduled today to mark the conservation theme.
