Chairman of the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB), Manjula Pinnalanda, announced that the Board has so far purchased 600,000 kilograms of paddy from the current Yala season harvest.
He noted that the largest quantity of paddy has been procured from the Ampara District, with additional stocks arriving from districts in the Northern Province and the Puttalam District.
To support the storage of these stocks, paddy warehouses in the Anuradhapura District and the North Western Province have already been opened.
The government had previously introduced a guaranteed price scheme, under which:
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Nadu is purchased at Rs. 120 per kilogram
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Samba at Rs. 125 per kilogram
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Keeri Samba at Rs. 132 per kilogram
A total of Rs. 6 billion was allocated in the previous national budget to fund this procurement initiative.
