Harnessing the Monsoon…

We are staying just out on the west side of Nuwara Eliya in a luxury  ex- planter's bungalow. The next day we plan to travel south and visit Kotmale Dam . 

Sri Lanka has 32 dams and about 18,000 tanks. One of the first reservoirs was built by a Sri Lankan King back in 400 BC. Clearly for crop growing and consistent water supply as the country is blessed with two monsoons and lots of rain.

In creating dams, there can be massive amounts of people to be relocated. Example, thirty thousand people in the case of Victoria Dam.  The benefits are however not just the hydro  production, local employment, agriculture, but in the longer term and yet to  to be maximized is types of  tourism.

We are heading for Kotmale Dam in central Sri Lanka. My first visit to Kotmale and the dam was over fourteen years ago, but I didn’t see the information centre then, and the stupa had not been completed or opened. Ironically, that  visit was with the younger son of Gamini Dissanayake.

Construction of the Kotmale Dam began in 1979 and it opened ahead of schedule in 1985. This was in part due to the efforts of Gamini Dissanayake, as the project was in his "neck of the woods". As a potential president and leader of his political party, there are many theories as to why he was sadly assassinated along with sixty-eight others. Kotmale Dam was renamed the Gamini Dissanayake Reservoir by Ranil Wickremesinghe in 2003. A bit ironic, some may say. 

The information centre at the dam includes a model which concentrates on the dam wall and the water flowing through it on one side generating electricity. It does not show the extent of the reservoir created, which in fact is 250000 square meters , with three hundred metre cliff faces. This is one of the largest dams in Sri Lanka. Victoria Dam however is the biggest water capacity and we head off there for a three-hour scenic drive. 

Construction of the Kotmale Dam began in 1979 and it opened ahead of schedule in 1985. This was in part due to the efforts of Gamini Dissanayake, as the project was in his "neck of the woods"

We arrive in good spirits at Victoria looking out at some of the Knuckles Mountain Range, which has over thirty four peaks in central Sri Lanka. In the early days of this dam's creation the British Queen Elizabeth came to view the progress. The project was funded by the UK via an aid grant and was opened by Margaret Thatcher. Queen Victoria's statue was moved there recently and  now stands at the visitors' centre car park .It has been moved over seven times since independence. The visitors' centre above the dam is very informative, gives the history and photos of the key events. I had the opportunity some years ago to fly over Victoria lake ( the dam ) in a seaplane. Looking down, the lake resembles an aging “W”, with the mighty Mahaweli river  and streams feeding into it, all on what looks like a green carpet. Hopefully I will get to sail my boat, “Tit Willow“ on this man-made lake in my life time.  Sri Lanka needs to maximize the assets. 

My first interest in dams  in my younger days was  the Kariba Dam between Zimbabwe and Zambia where I grew up. 

The dam has a double curve and is three times as high as Kotmale. Kariba is the biggest water surface dam in the world. We went down to the dryer side of the dam wall into the crater in the 1960s in a cable pulley carriage. So if you haven’t visited any dams in Sri Lanka, it’s time to get on the road. Dammed if you don’t.