10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake

Jathika Jana balawegaya· National List· 21 March 2025 ·Debate: Appropriation Bill 2025 - Committee Stage (Twenty-sixth Day) and Third Reading

Agriculture
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Hon. Bimal Rathnayake stated that the Government had not promised a fertilizer subsidy for the last Maha season or a fuel subsidy for fishermen in its election manifesto. He said, however, that both subsidies were nevertheless provided, and responded to Opposition references to the Government’s manifesto by saying the Government had not forgotten its commitments.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Alright. If there is time, I will take it; otherwise I can conclude.

¶ 02 We did not promise farmers a fertilizer subsidy for the last Maha season. There was no such election promise. It is better you read our Manifesto than yours. I appreciate that many in the Opposition reminded us of our Manifesto. That is valuable; we should not forget it, and we have not. But we never promised a fertilizer subsidy for the last Maha. Yet, we gave it. The Minister of Agriculture is here. We did not promise a fuel subsidy to fishermen either. We gave that too. People know these are not mere claims; these are things we did.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Friday, 21 March 2025 ·No. 1747297753031842 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 21 March 2025. No. 1747297753031842. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/15816