{"id":118688,"date":"2021-09-28T17:35:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T00:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=118688"},"modified":"2021-09-28T17:35:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T00:35:40","slug":"the-walkway-at-parakrama-samudraya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/28\/the-walkway-at-parakrama-samudraya\/","title":{"rendered":"The Walkway at Parakrama Samudraya"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Many articles have been\npublished against the construction  of\nthe Walkway on the bund of the Parakrama Samudra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should be thankful to the\nirrigation engineers and to Austin Fernando once the Government Agent at\nPolonnaruwa for their ideas. I too voiced my ideas but mine appeared only in\nLanka Web. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all this the\nauthorities have decided that the construction of the Walkway will be done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is most important is to\nnote that the Government Agent and the irrigation  engineers have detailed their actual\nexperience. They are responsible senior officers who once struggled and strove\nto save that tank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me  the most important fact that has been\nrevealed is that with the monsoon rains the waters have topped the bund at a\nnumber of places in several years. This to my mind is a serious situation. I\nwould kindly request the irrigation engineers who are involved in the\nconstruction of this walkway to give some definite thought to this factor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be frank I know little of\nirrigation work compared to the knowledge of trained engineers, but as an\nadministrator I have a trained mind to be able to grasp factors fast. . I have\nbeen in charge of minor irrigation work for some five years and had the\noccasion to learn from engineers with whom I worked at Anuradhapura. To my\nthinking there should never be a situation of the waters in a irrigation tank\ntopping the bund. That is a No No situation and \nif ever the waters of a tank overflow the bund at any point, it calls\nfor the engineers to look at the spillway, expand the spill. This has to be\ndone fast and the funds earmarked for the Walkway would be better spent to\ndevelop the spillway. I have not seen the spillway of the Prakrama\nSamudraya  but if necessary and possible\nthe spillmay be done on the OGEE spill basis.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day when I was the senior\nAssistant Commissioner  in charge of\nminor irrigation at Anuradhapura I received instructions on the phone to meet\nDr Nag, an irrigation specialist from India the next morning and told to take\nhim to a few of our tanks. He had been headhunted from India for a few\ndays.  I selected the Horowpotana tank\nand a few others. He was flown in a helicopter \nand I showed him the details of the tanks I had selected. He decided to\nsee the tank at Horowpotana. His observation \nafter seeing a number of our tanks was that we should build OGEE type of\nspillways. He got back to Colombo that evening itself. I inquired about the\nOGEE spillways from the irrigation engineers with whom I worked. It is a type\nof spillway of a peculiar shape which increases the outtake of water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps in developing the\nspillway, the engineers may consider whether Dr Nag\u2019s ideas may be feasible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my paper I had suggested\nthat the Relapanawa should be immediately restored. The Relapanawa is the\nbulwark to ensure that the waters do not wash the bund and it has to be\nrestored immediately in October as otherwise the waters are very likely wash\naway the bund.  With what I have read of\nthe experiences of the Government Agent and the irrigation  engineers and their action taken to save the\nParakrama Samudra in earlier years I wonder whether the irrigation personnel\ninvolved in the removal of the relapanawa have had their minds brainwashed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To everyone involved, please\nsave the Parakrama Samudraya. If you tinker along it is likely that the entire\ntown of Polonnaruwa and many colonies will get washed up in the fury of the\nwaters, causing, deaths to many and untold misery for years. Let that not\nhappen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former G.A.Matara 28 th September 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne Many articles have been published against the construction  of the Walkway on the bund of the Parakrama Samudra.  We should be thankful to the irrigation engineers and to Austin Fernando once the Government Agent at Polonnaruwa for their ideas. I too voiced my ideas but mine appeared only in Lanka Web.  Despite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}