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On July 10, 2026, the Thambuttegama Water Supply Project was officially opened and handed over to the public under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Within hours, a video carrying the News 1st logo began spreading, claiming the project had been halted amid public protests and that 50 demonstrators had been remanded. It looked like breaking news, and users shared it as though it had just happened. We traced the footage. Here is what we found.
Social Media Posts
Taking it to be a recent development, social media users weighed in on the matter as shown below.
We therefore set out to establish the truth behind the claim.
Fact Check:
Mainstream media and official news sources reported that the Thambuttegama Water Supply Project was officially handed over to the people on July 10, 2026, under the President’s patronage. Those reports are available here, here and here.
Since the handover, no news source has reported any recent public protest over this water supply project, any halt to it caused by such protests, or the remanding of 50 protesters.
The video, however, circulated bearing the News 1st logo. We therefore checked whether News 1st had recently reported any such story and found that it had not.
The Thambuttegama Water Supply Project: Contracted in 2017
Initial groundwork for the project began in April 2016, aimed at supplying clean drinking water as a remedy for the chronic kidney disease prevalent in the Anuradhapura District. The Cabinet decision media statement dated April 26, 2016, is available here. A concessional loan of US$102.5 million (close to Rs. 32 billion) from the China Development Bank (CDB) was formally secured through an agreement signed on August 21, 2017.
While that work was under way, a public protest was held in Thambuttegama town on February 28, 2018. It escalated into a violent standoff between police and protesters, with tear gas and water cannon deployed, and 57 people were arrested.
Amid Public Protests in 2018, the Government Decided to Temporarily Suspend the Project
The protests were driven by fears that drawing water from the Rajanganaya reservoir, as originally planned, would deplete levels critical for irrigating more than 17,000 acres of paddy land in the area and so threaten farmers’ livelihoods.
Amid rumors spreading across the region that Rajanganaya reservoir water was to be sold to a multinational or private company for a bottled drinking water venture, and in the face of fierce opposition, the government decided to temporarily suspend the project the very next day (March 1, 2018) after the February 28 protest. Media reports on this are available here.
The News 1st Video Circulating Online Is Footage from February 28, 2018, Protest
The video now circulating on social media with the News 1st logo, presented as a recent event, is in fact footage originally broadcast by News 1st covering the February 28, 2018, protest in Thambuttegama. The original is below.
Facebook. Additional media coverage featuring footage of that protest can be found here and here.
The Project Resumed in July 2018, Suspended During the Economic Crisis, Restarted in 2024, and Handed Over in 2026
According to the official project data system of the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB), following the 2018 farmer protests the Water Supply Board, the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka, the Department of Irrigation and local farmer organizations held discussions and reached a final agreement to replace the Rajanganaya reservoir with the Angamuwa reservoir as the project’s new water source.
Construction officially commenced on July 1, 2018. Because of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis and the resulting payment delays, the contractor temporarily suspended work on May 22, 2022. After the government decided to resume the project through domestic funding, construction restarted in June 2024. Waterboard
By mid-2026, all essential infrastructure, including the water purification plant, water towers and pipeline network, had been successfully completed. Accordingly, on July 10, 2026, the Thambuttegama Water Supply Project was officially opened and handed over to the public under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
Full details of the water project are available here. Archived
Thambuttegama Police Confirm No Recent Protest Took Place
We contacted Thambuttegama Police to check whether any recent public protest had been held over the water supply project. They confirmed that the project had been launched the previous day under the President’s patronage, and that no public opposition or protest had occurred recently.
They did confirm, however, that public protests took place several years earlier, in 2018, when the project was first launched.
Presidential Media Division
When we contacted the Presidential Media Division, it confirmed that the Thambuttegama Water Supply Project had been successfully handed over to the public the previous day under the President’s patronage. It clarified that the video circulating on social media shows a public protest from years earlier, at the project’s inception, and is not a recent event.
The Division further explained that the Rajanganaya reservoir had originally been selected as the water source, and that the protests arose from concerns that drawing water from it, given its central role in agriculture, would create shortages for farming. After those concerns were considered, a decision was taken at that same time to use the Angamuwa reservoir instead. The project, which had stalled amid the economic crisis, was resumed and handed over to the public on July 10, 2026, under the President’s patronage.
Opposition Figures Allege the Government Has Not Given Full Credit on the Project
It can also be observed that certain parties have accused the government of misrepresenting the project’s origins. They argue that the bulk of the Thambuttegama Water Supply Project was carried out, amid various obstacles and protests, during the Yahapalana and Gotabaya Rajapaksa to Ranil Wickremesinghe administrations, and that the current National People’s Power government is presenting it as a project delivered under its own tenure.
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Conclusion
Our fact-check finds that the video circulating online, presented as a recent event and claiming the Thambuttegama Water Supply Project had halted with 50 protesters remanded, is misleading.
The footage in fact shows a public protest from 2018, at the project’s inception, which led to its temporary suspension that same year. The trigger for the opposition then was the plan to draw water from the Rajanganaya reservoir, and as a remedy it was decided that same year to use the Angamuwa reservoir instead. Carried forward under successive governments and through various obstacles, the project was ultimately handed over to the public on July 10, 2026. We rate the circulating video misleading.
Title: Old Protest, New Confusion: Has the Thambuttegama Water Project Really Halted Amid Protests?
Fact Check By: B.P. Hansani
Result: Misleading
