Govt. allocates Rs. 6 b for Yala season paddy

Monday, 3 August 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Waruni Paranagamage

The Ministry of Food Security said that it has allocated Rs. 6 billion to purchase paddy produced by farmers during the Yala season.

The purchasing process started island-wide on 29 July and there were 120,000 MT of paddy to be purchased.

Ministry of Food Security Secretary P.H.J.B Sugathadasa said that the purchasing certified price of paddy under the process would be Rs. 50 for Samba and Kiri Samba while Rs. 45 would be charged for Nadu.

Last week the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) was ordered by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to release its entire stock of paddy to the market at a lower price, to commence the purchase of yields from the ongoing Yala season of production.

However, Sugathadasa said that Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Galle and Matara would not enter the purchasing process due to the fact that the production levels from those areas were not even sufficient to satisfy their own consumption needs.

He said that the Jaffna District also had been excluded from the purchasing list because farmers there were not active during the Yala season.

The 2014/15 Maha season produced 1.67 million MT of paddy while the ongoing Yala season produced 1.04 million MT. Total production is 2.71 million MT but the local requirement is 2.27 million MT.