Ministry to acquire rental shops in arrears

Dharma Sri Abeyratne

The Co-operatives and Internal Trade Ministry will acquire retails shops for which rentals have not been paid at Economic Centres.

Cooperatives and Internal Trade Minister Jonston Fernando told economic centre managers to collect arrears' rentals of retail shops at Economic Centres.

The minister told ministry Additional Secretary D Jeewananda to take measure to acquire shops, which fail to pay arrears.

Fernando said infrastructure development activities will be completed within this year.

The ministry aim is to create a better marketing environment at economic centres to promote a fair trade. The ministry will carry out a mechanism to monitor vegetable prices at economic centres hourly, the minister said.

Meanwhile, vegetable prices at Manning Market dropped significantly compared to last month. Accordingly, prices of a variety of vegetables have come down drastically, sources said. Beans sold at Rs 180 on January 10, is sold at Rs 80 now. The sources said prices of all varieties of vegetable have come down.