Inginimitiya reservoir

Mee oya (river) starts in Dambulu Mountains and enters to the sea In Putlam bay.  It is 68 miles in height. The reservoir has been constructed by an earthen dam of which is 4.88 kilometers in length across Mee oya in Inginimitiya. Recently it has become historical as a long dam of which is 18 meters in maximum height. This reservoir is situated far away 110 miles from Colombo and submerged 4724 acres with the capacity of 58,833 acres and covers 150 square miles.

Discovering the history of Vanni hathpaththuva there were agricultural development in this area in the past. At the beginning of 20^th century there were 150 rural tanks approximately in the Puttlam district.  Inginimitiya rural tank was one of them. Mr. Henry parker a famous irrigation engineer has reported in his statement to an administrative report in north western province an attempt of rehabilitation of this tank through villagers. That tank had been submerged in Inginimitiya reservoir today. Inginimitiya rural name has been come to usage by the evolution of language such as higinimitiya and higinivitiya according to ancient epigraphs and imperial reports in the recent history as per book called manual of putlem published in 1908.

The idea of Inginimitiya has been presented for the first time in Rajya manthrana sabha before 75 years ago in 1930s. It included to priority list of North Western Agricultural Committee in 1951 as a formal step of implementation of this idea. Inginimitiya reservoir which was commenced on 14.03.1981 in auspicious time declared opened 25.03.1985. Inginimitiya reservoir comprising with bund of the tank, spill left and right sluices and main canals of Inginimitiya reservoir foster 16800 areas of Mee oya. Inginimitiya reservoir provides irrigation water 6530 acres of agricultural lands out of it 4,660 acres are scheduled to newly cultivated. In addition to the old settlements of 500 families in 1870 acres of agricultural lands 2200 families has been settled here under this scheme. They have now spread out in 9 villages including Merungoda and Inginimitiya. Overall project scheme including not only hospitals, schools, post offices cooperative shops and highways but also transport facilities are funded as loan aids by Japan and it is Yen 1800 Millions. Apart from that government of Sri Lanka has been received Rupees 89,000,000 as funds.

We cannot see beauty of the environment except cultivated lands because Iginimitiya reservoir was constructed in dry remote area. It is said that Inginimitiya is a Mahaweli scheme for Anamaduwa because it has contributed to uplift social conditions in Vanni. Although they are annoyed by shortage of water they are rich in values inherited us because they are used to define regional engineer who conduct constructions of Inginimitiya reservoir project scheme as Inginimitiye deviyo (god inInginimitiya).  This is reminded us legends of Mahasen and Kadavara which was familiar to us. Inginimitiya reservoir inherited to the people who fought for water to live, created smiles in the faces of the people by which will fulfill the shortcoming of the beauty of environment in the nature.