The Hon. Upali Samarasingha - Deputy Minister of Co-operative Development
On behalf of the relevant Minister, the Deputy Minister provided figures on co-operative outlets in Badulla District, stating that 58 outlets were operating as at 1 January 2026, including 9 within estate areas. He reported that 180 outlets had closed between 2015 and 2025, mostly those run by Multipurpose Co-operative Societies. He also clarified that no separate estate co-operative societies are registered specifically for housing construction and loans, though estate workers’ co-operatives provide loans and consumer goods, with 3 Estate Shop Co-operatives and 63 Estate Housing Co-operatives operating in Badulla.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Co‑operative Development, I answer as follows regarding Badulla District.
¶ 02 (a) (i) Number of co‑operative outlets as at 2026.01.01: 58 - Operated by Multipurpose Co-operative Societies (MPCS): 49 - Operated by Estate Workers’ Housing Co‑ops: 4 - Operated by Estate Workers’ Shop Co‑ops: 5
¶ 03 (ii) Number of co‑operative outlets operating within estate areas (as at 2026.01.01): 9 - Estate Workers’ Housing Co‑ops: 4 - Estate Workers’ Shop Co‑ops: 5
¶ 04 (iii) Number of co‑operative outlets closed during 2015–2025: 180 - Formerly operated by MPCS: 168 - Estate Workers’ Housing Co‑ops: 11 - Estate Workers’ Shop Co‑ops: 1
¶ 05 (b) (i) No separate co‑operative societies are registered specifically for housing construction and loan provision within estates; however, estate workers’ co‑op societies function to provide loans and sell consumer goods to estate workers. (ii) There are no co‑operative “societies” operating within estates as a distinct category; but in Badulla there are 3 Estate Shop Co‑ops and 63 Estate Housing Co‑ops in operation.
¶ 06 (c) Not applicable.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 23 January 2026 ·No. 23290 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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Cite as: The Hon. Upali Samarasingha - Deputy Minister of Co-operative Development. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 23 January 2026. No. 23290. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/14320