Sri Lanka has completed excavation work on what officials say will be South Asia’s longest irrigation tunnel, marking a major milestone in the country’s irrigation history.
The 27.7-kilometre tunnel was bored under the North Central Province Canal Project, a key component of the Mahaweli Master Plan. Excavation was carried out by two advanced Tunnel Boring Machines that began work simultaneously from Maha Meegaswewa and Koduruwawa. The project reached a “Tunnel Breakthrough” when the two sections met beneath the ground, a significant engineering achievement.
The tunnel is being developed under the Mahaweli Water Security Investment Programme with financing from the Asian Development Bank. The wider North Central Province Canal Project stretches nearly 240 kilometres and is designed to improve water distribution by supplying 1,505 reservoirs linked to 12 major irrigation systems and 130 cascade networks.
Authorities said the scheme will deliver direct benefits to around 25,000 families and support cultivation across 74,000 hectares of farmland during both the Yala and Maha seasons. Once completed, it is expected to release about 70 million cubic metres of water annually and meet the drinking water needs of nearly 1.5 million people.
The project is also intended to improve access to clean drinking water in the Rajarata region, where communities have long faced chronic kidney disease of unknown origin.
