Archives

Govt. gives Rs. 50m to purchase Ampara paddy harvest

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

The Government has released Rs.50 million to the Ampara district to purchase the bumper Maha paddy harvested in the region, Agriculture and Livestock Minister S.B.Dissanayake said. The Minister said 74,900 hectares in Ampara district had been cultivated with paddy this Maha season and the total harvest expected is nearly 288,000 Metric tons.

Ampara district accounted for the largest acreage of paddy cultivated this Maha season. This Rs.50 million has been granted to the Co-operative Societies and the CWE to purchase the paddy harvest from farmers without any hindrance. They will shortly commence purchasing, he said. Steps will be taken to grant credit facilities to the private sector for paddy purchasing. A 15 per cent interest will be charged on these loans, the Minister said.

The Minister said that he held a discussion with the Government officials and farmer representatives at Ampara Kachcheri on March 1 and decided to provide immediate solutions to the problems faced by the paddy farmers.

During the discussion, farmers in Ampara district said that at present their paddy is being purchased at Rs.12 to Rs.13 per Kilo. In addition "Alavi Saviya" advance loan scheme implemented by the Agriculture Ministry to overcome the farmers' marketing problems is also being successfully implemented in the Ampara district."

"This tendency indicates that problems on paddy purchases will not arise in the Ampara district this season. This proved that the programmes implemented by the Government for the benefit of farmers had been successful," the Minister said.

Meanwhile, arrangements will be made to import urea fertilizer from Libya provided there is no war situation in the Middle East. This will help provide a bag of urea fertilizer to farmers at Rs.500. "If this fails, steps will be taken to introduce a new fertilizer to farmers which will constitute a mixture of Eppawala phosphate and compost fertilizer.

Studies are now being conducted by the Ministry in this regard," the Minister said.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager