The Hon. (Dr.) Susil Ranasinghe - Deputy Minister of Land and Irrigation

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, there is indeed a shortage of technical officers in the Department of Agrarian Development and, for Kurunegala, in the North Western Provincial Department of Irrigation as well. This has constrained implementation. The Government has already decided to recruit 30,000 officers across services; approvals have been given for recruiting certain numbers of technical officers for the Ministry of Agriculture and the Provincial Department of Irrigation. We have reported to the review committee at the Prime Minister’s Office that there is a shortage and expect further approvals. Some foreign-funded projects also have provisions for hiring technical staff; certain numbers have already been recruited for the Agrarian Development Department and the Irrigation Department. We acknowledge there are still constraints; we are managing by redeploying officers where possible. We will specifically look into Kurunegala and report back.