At least 1,200 people have been arrested in the western province of Sri Lanka for dumping garbage in open area, the police said yesterday.
Releasing a statement, the police department said people were arrested between over a period of 10 days. The highest numbers of individuals were arrested from Gampaha, while Kalutara reported the lowest number of arrests. 
“Two hundred fifty were arrested from Gampaha, 215 from Central Colombo, 169 from Colombo North, 153 from Kelaniya, 140 from Nugegoda, 85 from Panadura, 72 from Colombo South, 65 from Negombo, 27 from Mount Lavinia and four from Kalutara,” a police spokesman said. 
The raids were conducted by the police in collaboration with the army. 
Colombo Municipality Commissioner V K A Anura said raids will continue in the city until people stopped dumping garbage in open areas in the city. 
The operation commenced on June 15, was aimed at reducing the 650m tonnes of garbage collected by the Colombo municipality within its limits, he said. 
Anura stated that municipality workers had cleared out at least 200m tonnes of garbage dumped haphazardly on the streets each day with most of the dumped waste generated from large production facilities. 
“We used to collect about 1,000m tonnes of garbage before we started to segregate and now we collect much less in Colombo. This is because people are more conscious of the waste they generate,” he said. 
Last week, Minister of Provincial Councils Faiszer Musthapha said mobile monitoring teams deployed by the ministry had identified 2,336 persons, while dumping garbage on roads in a haphazard manner. 
He also said steps would be taken to set up street cameras to identify persons who dump garbage on the roadside and in public places.
Sri Lanka has suffered a record 200 deaths from dengue fever this year, the health minister said last week, blaming a garbage disposal crisis in Colombo.
Rotting garbage has been piling up in many parts of the capital since the country’s main rubbish tip collapsed in April, crushing dozens of homes and killing 32 people.
With nowhere to take the trash, municipal collection has drastically slowed and led to huge piles on the streets which authorities say are encouraging mosquito-breeding.
“The situation could get worse if we don’t tackle the garbage problem quickly,” Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said as official figures showed 210 people had died from dengue so far this year - well over double the figure for the whole of 2016.
“It is not something my ministry can do alone but we need a collective effort.”
The number of infected people in the first six months of this year was nearly 70,000 compared to about 55,000 cases for the whole of last year, official figures showed.