One in five Sri Lankan households lacks basic drinking water facilities: survey

COLOMBO, July 23 (Xinhua) — Sri Lanka has 20.3 percent of households countrywide lacking basic drinking water facilities, a recent survey carried out by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) on household drinking water quality has found.
The department defines access to basic facilities as the ability to collect drinking water from an improved source, such as protected well, tube well, tap water, bottled water and RO (reverse osmosis) plant, within 30 minutes.
The report said 40.6 percent of Sri Lankan households used improved sources free of E. coli contamination.
Meanwhile, 0.7 percent of households in the South Asian country collected drinking water directly from surface water sources, such as river, dam, lake, pond, stream, canal or irrigation canal, according to the report.
The department also found that 16.1 percent of households drink water from an unprotected well.
The department added that samples of 3,210 households were selected in the survey, representing a cross-section of the entire country, to provide reliable estimates. ■