KITI is a training Institute will be established under the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources Management to resolve a issue faced by the Ministry. As you all aware there are more than 400 vacancies in the Irrigation Sector for Engineering Assistants.The situation has been aggravated as there is a very big demand for EAA in the private sector. Hence day by day EAA are leaving and consequently there lots of vacancies in the MASL and ID. Hence, Eng. Ivan De Silva (the Secretary of Irrigation and Water Resources Management) decided to open up Training Institute and train young GCE Advanced qualified as Irrigation Learners and resolve this issue to a certain extent. The course at KITI for Irrigation Learners will be two year that is one year academic and second year they will be given on the job training. Once they complete the second year for the successful students will be offered a certificate as Irrigation learner. They have the opportunity work in either in ID or MASL. If they wants to continue higher education, the opportunity also available to do higher diploma at the Training Institute will be established at Colombo. This course will be equivalent NVQ level 5 or 6.
On the other hand for the officers of all categories in the Government Sector as well as in the private sector, the regular training in their disciplines and developing bilingual skills is a vital need today to improve productivity and eliminate social unrest in the Country. Most of the vibrant Institutions of the Country which serve a lot to the country’s economy has come to standstill due to lack of regular training to all categories of officers and also some of the trained staff leaving the organization or migrating. Hence, it is high time to uplift the skills of all categories of officers by giving training to improve their productivity.
The Government of Sri Lanka annually allocates a considerable amount of local and reimbursable foreign funds to improve, upgrade and maintain the Irrigation Net work in the country. But, it is observed that the Implementing Agencies (IA) such as Department of Irrigation (ID) and Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka (MASL) are not in a position to spend the full allocations and well maintain the Irrigation Schemes (IS). The reasons given by the Institutions are that they are incapable to handle that quantum of workload due to the shortage of experienced staff in the Engineering field. It is said that in Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka (MASL) as well as in the Irrigation Department (ID), there is a big vacuum of qualified personnel to manage the Irrigation assets efficiently. In Mahaweli Areas as well as in the Irrigation Department (ID) there is no sufficient qualified Engineering staff. This situation has been aggravated due to the facts that the qualified Engineers and Engineering Assistants in the Government Sector have already left their organizations as there is a big demand in the industry outside as well as overseas with better remuneration. Hence, there is an urgent requirement to train sufficient Engineering staff to meet this challenge and maintain the Irrigation Schemes at a high standard which is a prime requirement of the country today.
The Major setback of finding officers is that there is no sufficient fully equipped Training Centers to meet the demand to train officers and fill the vacancies. Kothmale proposed International Irrigation Training Institute will be one of the Institutes which could be developed to cater to the country’s need in all aspects in the future.
The Proposed Training Institute situated near Kothmale Reservoir,facing Kothmale River which is a tributary of Mahaweli Ganga will be anideal location for a training Institute because of the climate, environment as well as the availability of resource persons to conduct training since the University of Peradeniya is at close proximity. It is located just 35 km from the Hill Country capital Kandy and also just 7 km from the Main Kandy Nuwara Eliya Highway.