Damage caused to paddy sacks:

Minister orders for report

Chamikara Weerasinghe

A team of senior officials from the Internal Trade Ministry and Paddy Marketing Board will visit paddy storage complexes in the Ampara district today where several stocks of paddy stored in gunny bags were reportedly wasted due to rainwater that has seeped through the polythene covers. As a result paddy seeds have begun to germinate.

The team will visit the Walpita Paddy Storage Complex in Divulapitiya and the Ampara District Paddy Storage Complex. This is following the orders of Co-operatives and Internal Trade Minister Johnston Fernando to submit a full report on the incident, Ministry sources said.

Paddy Marketing Board Chairman K B Jayasinghe said there is no way that water could seep through thick polythene layers that were shielding the paddy sacks unless someone or some animal damaged them.

”It could be a monkey or a rat,” he said.

Asked if it could be due to poor maintenance of storage methods, he said then they could not have maintained the quality of their paddy buffer stocks for so long.

Asked about the damage, he said it was minimal.” There were only three paddy sacks found with germinated seeds in them, as I understand,” he said.

The sacks were stored on a wooden platform on stilts in keeping with an Indian Paddy Storage Method, he said.

The method was first introduced in September at the Walpita Paddy Storage Complex with the participation of Minister Johnston Fernando.

It is a method of storing paddy outdoors. The method is currently used in the Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Ampara districts.

It was introduced to store the buffer paddy stocks from the lost harvest.

The Indian method can keep paddy in good condition for 12 to 18 months.