The Hon. Kins Nelson
The Hon. Kins Nelson raised a supplementary question on the continuing shortage of Keeri Samba and Samba rice despite guaranteed prices of Rs. 260 and Rs. 240, noting that black-market traders are allegedly buying at much higher prices. He questioned whether major paddy mills are holding stocks, asked where black-market supplies originate, and sought details of concrete measures by the Ministry to release hidden stocks and make rice available to consumers at concessionary prices.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 My first supplementary: Over the past two years, there has been a major shortage of Keeri Samba and Samba. The Government set guaranteed prices at Rs. 260 for Keeri Samba and Rs. 240 for Samba. Yet black-market shops buy Keeri Samba at Rs. 380 and Samba at Rs. 290. From where do these shops get these varieties? There are three main paddy mills. Do these mills hold Keeri Samba and Samba? What measures has your Ministry taken? Earlier, the former President even deployed the Army to inspect these mills but nothing resulted. You came to power promising to bring out hidden stocks and provide rice to consumers at concessionary prices. You have collected fines, yes, but there is still no Keeri Samba and Samba. What concrete steps are you taking?
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 20 March 2026 ·No. 23396 ·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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/lk/speeches/8368
Cite as: The Hon. Kins Nelson. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 March 2026. No. 23396. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/8368