Price slash on three essentials
Ishara Mudugamuwa
Minister
Bandula Gunawardena |
The Government has taken action to reduce the prices of three main
essential food items, dhal, sugar and canned fish, Trade Marketing
Development Co-operatives and Consumer Affairs Minister Bandula
Gunawardena said.
Accordingly prices of sugar was reduced by Rs. 20.50, red dhal by Rs.
50 per kilogram and canned fish by Rs. 81 per can. The present price of
sugar is Rs. 89.50, dhal Rs. 180 and canned fish Rs. 149, he told a
press conference at his Ministry yesterday.
“People can buy these essential food items from any Lak Sathosa
branch. Within one week, we hope to sell these food items at the same
reduced prices in co-op centres and mini co-op centres. It is true
prices of essential food items went up rapidly last year.
But now we can reduce the cost of living by reducing the prices of
essential food items. People were not made aware about this. They don’t
know where these items could be bought at reduced prices. We can’t
reduce prices of all food items because we have to buy them at the
prices in world market,” he said.
“The Government always tries to help people by providing food items
at a subsidized price. We have to keep the price of rice at maximum Rs.
70.
“Farmers will face lots of difficulties if they are unable to sell
rice at a good price. The Government has to think about both sides,
farmers and consumers,” the Minister said.
“After we had discussions with the Myanmar Government, they agreed to
supply rice at any time at a lower price. Pakistan also had agreed to
supply rice at any time. If the traders created an artificial shortage
of rice in the market we are ready to face it by releasing buffer stocks
at lower prices,” he said. |