Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2018-03-06

Controlling of the floods in the Colombo and Kolonnawa areas

- The Kolonnawa Canal Diversion Scheme (KCD) has been identified as a major development activities under the Metro Colombo Urban Development Project, carried out aimed at mitigating of floods. Under this project, it is expected to widen the existing canals to flow down the storm water in the Colombo area during the periods of low water levels in the Kelani River and also to make arrangements to mitigate the flood condition occurring in the Kolonnawa area during the periods of high water level in the Kelani River.

As such, it has been planned to reconstruct the flood gate structure across the Kiththampahuwa Canal closer to the outfall on Sedawaththa - Ambathale Road and to remove the bottlenecks to the canal flow and to conduct the gabion bank conservation activities. As such, the proposal made by Hon. Patali Champika Ranawaka, the Minister of Megapolis and Western Development, to implement the project with the assistance of the Officers of the Department of Irrigation and the Climate Resilience Improvement Project, was approved by the Cabinet.