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Last June, Mr. Mahinda Amaraweera, the Minister of Agriculture and Plantation Industries presented a Cabinet paper to the government to provide 2000 million rupees to the Paddy Marketing Board to purchase paddy in this Yala season.
Mr. Buddhika Iddamalgoda (Attorney-at-Law), Chairman of the Paddy Marketing Board, stated that the Cabinet meeting was held yesterday (26) afternoon under the patronage of Honorable President Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe and it was decided to provide an amount of 500 million rupees to the Paddy Marketing Board under the first phase.
Thus, the Paddy Marketing Board has decided to start paddy purchase from today (27).
For that purpose, 32 paddy warehouses located in the districts where paddy harvesting has been completed have been prepared and another 100 warehouses have been prepared to be opened whenever necessary, said Mr. Buddhika Iddamalgoda, Chairman of Paddy Marketing Board.
At present, there is a high price for Nadu paddy in the market, so the private sector purchases it for 120 rupees per kilo gram. However, the chairman also said that he believes that the farmers will not take steps to give their stock of Nadu paddy to the Paddy Marketing Board at the government control price.
He also mentioned that currently the price of keeri samba paddy has fallen to 105-110 rupees in the market, but he is ready to buy it at the maximum price of 130 rupees set by the government for keeri samba. Therefore, the Chairman said that he expects more Samba and Keeri Samba rice to be sold by farmers to the Paddy Marketing Board.
