By S. Rubathessan  The government has decided to maintain its own buffer stocks of paddy as a countermeasure against large-scale mill owners who are holding back stocks, resulting in a shortage of rice and an increase in prices. Agriculture Ministry Secretary M.P.N.M. Wickremasinghe told the Sunday Times the current fluctuation of rice prices was because [...]

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Govt. to buy 300,000 tonnes of rice to control prices

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By S. Rubathessan 

The government has decided to maintain its own buffer stocks of paddy as a countermeasure against large-scale mill owners who are holding back stocks, resulting in a shortage of rice and an increase in prices.

Agriculture Ministry Secretary M.P.N.M. Wickremasinghe told the Sunday Times the current fluctuation of rice prices was because large mill owners had significantly reduced the supplies to the market to create an artificial shortage.

He said the government had decided to buy 300,000 Metric Tonnes (MT) of paddy at the upcoming Maha season harvest as buffer stock for the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) to maintain stability in rice prices.

“Currently we don’t have enough paddy stocks at the PMB, particularly Nadu varieties, due to decisions taken by the previous government. We hope to increase paddy stocks to the level of middle-level millers by buying large stocks at the harvest of the upcoming Maha season,” the secretary said.

The PMB has a limited amount of paddy stocks of the Keeri Samba variety in its stores in Ampara, and this led to an increase in rice prices in the market following the announcement by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake that the government would soon stop importing rice.

The Agriculture Ministry has also issued directives to renovate the government-owned storage facilities in key agriculture districts to store Maha season paddy stocks.

(See the related story on Page 20)

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