ADB’s water brings life to Vavuniya, but affordability crisis looms for the poor

For the women of Vavuniya's rural outskirts, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) didn't just lay pipes; it gifted them time. It returned to them the hours once spent in a daily, desperate pilgrimage for water.

- BY SANATH NANAYAKKARE

Before 2009, their lives were defined by the walk to the well - a journey that often ended in disappointment, with dry pumps and empty pots. Their children, parched, sometimes missed school. Their husbands, daily-wage labourers earning a median of Rs. 2,000 a day, left for work with anxiety weighing as heavy as the tropical sun.

Today, the turn of a tap brings a clean, steady flow, a miracle made possible by the ADB's $40 million investment under the Dry Zone Urban Water and Sanitation Project. This ambitious scheme replaced a defunct system, constructing a new dam and a modern treatment plant that now delivers safe, potable water to 80,000 people. The physical transformation is undeniable; a feat of engineering that ended a decades-long water crisis.

But for women like Maithri, Jinothia, and Ratha, this blessing has come with a new, painful paradox: they have water they can no longer afford.