President deploys army officials at divisional secretariats to look into welfare of drought-affected

President Maithripala Sirisena has given instructions to the relevant officials to deploy Army officials at the Divisional Secretariat level to look into the welfare of people affected by the drought.  

He issued these instructions during a special meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday. 

The President summoned this meeting to review the progress and current situation of post-disaster management activities implemented in districts affected by floods and landslides. 

During this meeting special attention was drawn to the welfare of people from areas affected by the drought.     

The people in those areas have to face many difficulties with these prevailing dry weather conditions and the President said that it is the responsibility of all to provide relief measures to those affected.   

The requisite funds have been allocated to the relevant institutions to provide the drinking water and other water needs of those people and the President instructed the officials to continuously monitor the progress of those activities.  

Furthermore, the President said that he has decided to provide dry rations to those affected and said that he will submit this proposal to Cabinet.   

President Sirisena pointed out the importance of handing over high-quality foods to those people and gave instructions to deploy an investigative team to scrutinise the process. 

Meanwhile, progress in identifying and releasing alternate lands for the resettlement of those who have lost their houses due to recent calamities was also discussed. The President instructed officials to complete the identification process for these lands before 15 August and if there were any issues in this regard to inform him in writing by Wednesday. 

Furthermore, the President instructed the officials to hand over those identified lands to their respective beneficiaries before the end of the month. Ministers Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Vajira Abeywardena, Faiszer Musthapha and Mangala Samaraweera, Secretaries of Ministries, including the Secretary to the President Austin Fernando, District Secretaries  and public servants were present at the discussion.