The Hon. Suranga Rathnayaka
Hon. Suranga Rathnayaka questioned whether the Government has a concrete plan beyond Paddy Marketing Board purchases to ensure a fair paddy price for farmers in the current season. He argued that PMB purchasing has been insufficient, noting that paddy prices had fallen from earlier levels of Rs. 120–130 per kilo to Rs. 75–80, and raised concerns about alleged market manipulation by large millers.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Minister, your own answer shows the Government’s purchasing via the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) is inadequate to secure fair prices for farmers. Since your Government took office, this is the fourth season. When you came in, the market price per kilo of paddy was Rs. 120; after discussions with millers, it was increased to Rs. 130. Yet, farmers are now being paid Rs. 75–80. A former Minister on your front bench said only two big millers manipulate the market and jailing them would solve it, but now the Government appears beholden to them.
¶ 02 My question: will you ensure a fair price to farmers this season—beyond the PMB—through a concrete plan?
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Wednesday, 4 March 2026 ·No. 23360 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/13371
Cite as: The Hon. Suranga Rathnayaka. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 4 March 2026. No. 23360. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/13371