It was way back in 1968, after the publication of the government sessional paper 26 of 1966 on the subject of "Reclamation of Marshes in and around Colombo" (a study entrusted to the engineers of R&D Division of the Irrigation Department) that a separate board called the Colombo District Low Lying Areas Reclamation and Development Board was formed. The location was No. 4, 22nd Lane, Colombo 3 and all the specialised staff of this division were transferred from IUD to the new board. I then happened to be the youngest engineer of this group and the today, the only retired survivor.

It must be admitted that the board did not do well for reasons not connected with technicalities and this resulted in the disappointed engineers reverting back to the ID, where they belonged, one by one.

In 1978, I was appointed DGM with the sole aim of reviving this board. The Chairman was a highly qualified Civil Engineer holding a PhD.

Our greatest challenge and opportunity for revival then came when the reclamation work of the new parliament at Kotte was awarded to the board at a meeting presided by JRJ with many senior ministers in attendance and held at the UDA auditorium. It was I who took up this challenge on behalf of the board.

I lost no time in convincing the Chairman that if the threat of floods were to be properly solved then not only "reclamation" was important but also proper "drainage" was even more important before the parliament was constructed. Thus, the transfer of canals took place around 1979 where I was a signatory and this position remains the same today.

However, my ambition of ensuring proper drainage was short lived and for reasons better not mentioned, I decided to revert back to the ID, leaving the canals with the board. (now a corporation). This marked the first breakaway from the ID but the corporation as such still remained under the irrigation ministry. Then the chairmanship started to change from civil engineers to mechanical engineers to accountants and politicians. And finally, the fatal decision for no intelligent reason to transfer the board from the irrigation ministry to the urban development ministry which had nothing to do with canals or floods or drainage, took place. This marked the beginning of the complete break away from the irrigation influence including the speciality in ‘drainage’.

The futility of this decision was soon exposed when a good part of Colombo, including a part of the new Parliament went under water in 1992, said to have been caused by an unauthorised gate that had been constructed at the Nagalagam Street premises of the Irrigation Department which could not be opened in time for no fault of irrigation personnel. Finally, after the intervention of the president, this gate was cut down by the Navy, resulting in another comedy when the pressure of water made the cut gate to crash on to the open ID gate and close it once again.

It took seven days for the water to subside. This flood did not spare the concerned minister too who had to be rescued by a Navy boat from his residence at Royal Park. Typical of Sri Lanka, there was no inquiry and everything was swept under the carpet.

Sadly, the breakaway from ID left the new engineers joining the SLLR & DC directly, with no proper training in aspects of drainage. The older engineers too retired one by one. Today, their main speciality is selling unwashed sea sand and providing permits to fill paddy lands. Drainage seems to be nobody’s business, leaving much to be desired. The original cost of protecting Colombo is now said to have multiplied several times. The original estimate was Rs. 4000 million.

Many floods have taken place since then with damage to property, etc and many lives lost too but the flood threat continues to haunt our capital city of Colombo as is happening at the time of writing this letter. It will be a double tragedy if at this stage a short sighted decision is taken to transfer Kelani flood bunds also from ID to SLLR & DC.