Three more Reverse Osmosis plants declared open
Passing yet another significant milestone of the Sri Lanka Navy’s noble effort in providing safe drinking water to the general public free of charge, under its Community Service Programmes, three more Reverse Osmosis plants were declared open recently.
As a result of the highest quality standards of Navy-made RO plants, at a request of the Presidential Secretariat Office, an RO facility was set up at its premises with the intention of providing safe drinking water for the consumption of HE the President, Maithripala Sirisena. Meanwhile, the second production unit of the Mobile Reverse Osmosis plant, was presented to the Marine Battalion by Navy’s Research and Development Unit, in view of facilitating the civilian population in an emergency situation. The Mobile Reverse Osmosis plant is the first of its kind produced by the Sri Lanka Navy. In similar vein, the latest installation at SLNS Mahanaga located in Panama belonging to the South Eastern Naval Command, is capable of producing safe drinking water for 1,461 naval personnel performing duty at the base.
Under the leadership of the Presidential Task Force on Prevention of Kidney Disease established by a visionary concept of HE the President, the Navy initiated this noble effort of installing RO units in Kidney prone areas, under close supervision of the Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne. Accordingly, the Navy’s Research and Development Unit has been extremely influential in producing these RO systems utilizing their expertise and technological know-how and has successfully installed a total of 137 RO facilities across the country to date, facilitating over 59,945 families and 47,445 school children with safe drinking water provided free of charge. As per the survey of the Ministry of Health it was recorded that the annual addition of the number of Kidney patients has reduced from 5,000 to 3,000 due to this magnanimous cause of the Sri Lanka Navy.
Drinking water from RO plats is a great deal in curtailing the number of Kidney patients across the country. Meanwhile, HE the President instructed the Presidential Task Force on Prevention of Kidney Disease to produce a report on the number of beneficiary - families from RO facilities installed throughout the country. Incidentally, the Navy’s Research and Development Unit is currently collecting necessary data and making arrangements to produce that report to the President as soon as possible.