Govt purchases 84,000 mt of paddy

Uditha Kumarasinghe

COLOMBO: The Government has purchased nearly 84,000 Metric tons of paddy harvest of the Maha season at Rs.1500 million.

According to Agriculture Development and Agrarian Service Ministry the highest number of paddy harvest of 30,000 Metric tons worth over Rs. 620 million has been purchased from Polonnaruwa district. The second highest number of paddy harvest of 25,000 Metric tons has been purchased from Anuradhapura district.

In addition, arrangements have been made to purchase paddy from Western, Eastern and Southern Provinces, a Ministry spokesman said.

According to Agriculture Development and Agrarian Service Minister Maithripala Sirisena the Government’s paddy purchasing programme has become successful in all paddy purchasing districts. This time the Government’s paddy purchasing programme is being directly operated through the Sri Lanka Agriculture Marketing Authority.

Therefore some problems have been arisen on paddy purchasing. As a whole, the Government’s paddy purchasing mechanism has been implemented successfully, the Minister said.

“The intention of the Government was to intervene to purchase paddy and make a competitiveness in the market by maintaining a stable price. This initiative taken by the Government has achieved successful results.

“As a result, private traders have provided a good price for the farmers’s paddy,” he said. There is a 103,000 Metric tons of paddy stock in Government paddy stores.

Arrangements have been made to sell 20000 Metric tons of paddy from this stock within the next week through tenders The Ministry will systematically release this paddy stock to the market to maintain a stable price of rice in the market, he said.