President Maithripala Sirisena directed the relevant sectors to expedite construction work of the additional 2,500 kilometre long electrified fence that should be added to the existing fences to ward off elephant attacks against humans, according to a well laid out systematic plan.
President Sirisena gave these instructions at a meeting with the relevant stakeholders at the President’s Office regarding maintaining elephant fences.
The President emphasized the importance of maintaining the elephant fence properly to prevent human-elephant conflicts.
President Sirisena explained the urgent need to reconstruct the electric fences that are not active and broken. Over 1,800 Civil Defence Committee members are engaged in maintaining the elephant fences and it was pointed out that the amount of workers are not sufficient for the reconstruction of the elephant fences that covers about 4,000 kilometres islandwide.
Thus, the President ordered the officials to take action to fill these vacancies immediately.
President Sirisena who instructed to continuously provide the food allowance given to the Civil Defence Committee members, stressed the importance of conducting training programmes for them.
Sustainable Development, Wildlife and Regional Development Minister Sarath Fonseka, Secretary to the State Ministry of Defence A.P.G. Kithsiri, Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Kapila Waidyaratne, Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Ravindra Wijeygunaratne and Security Forces heads were present.