Essential Goods Budget Pack During Festive Season

A discussion was held at the Temple Trees to find ways and means of providing relief to public during Christmas and New Year. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe chaired it. Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera and Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Badiutheen participated along with representatives of the relevant state institutions and the private sector in this discussion. After a brief discussion they decided to establish “Fair Price Shops” countrywide with private sector participation as a strategy to control the Cost of Living targeting the forthcoming Christmas and New Year season. A Budget Pack containing eight essential consumer items including Rice, Dhal, Sugar, Sprats, B Onions, Potatoes and tinned fish will be issued to the market through these shops as a measure to ease the Cost of Living burden.

It is also hoped to arrange at a distribution strategy for this Budget Pack to enable consumers to obtain it through the Private sector super market chain and Lak Sathosa sales centres. In return ,the government has also decided to devise a strategy to introduce a concessionary electricity tariffs and provide some income tax relief to the Private Sector and state institutions involved in the provision of transport and marketing of these goods through this mechanism.

The release issued by the Prime Minister’s office said, leading super market and institutions such as ‘Lanka Sathosa, Cargills Food City, Laugfs, Richard Pieris and Company, John Keells Ltd. and Wickramaratne (Private) Ltd have already agreed to join this programme.