The Hon. Sunil Rathnasiri

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, on 15.05.2025, acting on information, Polonnaruwa Police raided a site in Dimbulagala where substandard fertilizer was being repackaged. Ammonia fertilizer with 21% nitrogen was being shifted into other bags by 12 innocent young Tamil workers, to be sold as urea. The bags were labelled as having 46% nitrogen. This fraud had long persisted under political protection. Farmers across Polonnaruwa complained that fertilizer had no effect and yields were poor.

¶ 02 In 2021, an order was placed for 96,000 metric tons of organic fertilizer from Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group Company, China; subsequently, US$ 6,900,000 was decided to be paid as compensation. My first supplementary: while thousands of fake urea bags are detected, the fine is only Rs. 5,000. That penalty is inadequate. Given the long-running fraud leading to collapse of farming, increased farmer poverty, failures of local rice mills, job losses, and rice imports—what redress will be provided for these social and economic losses, Hon. Deputy Minister?