The Cabinet has approved an additional Rs. 2.5 billion for the Paddy Marketing Board to keep buying paddy from the 2026 Yala season harvest, the Daily Mirror and Hiru News reported.
The PMB had already received Rs. 6 billion from allocations to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation for the Yala purchasing programme, and purchasing is under way using those funds.
Why more money was needed
Harvesting remains incomplete in the districts of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Puttalam, Mannar and Mullaitivu, and in the Mahaweli B, C and H zones. The government concluded that the funds already allocated for purchases in those areas were insufficient to meet the remaining requirement.
The further Rs. 2.5 billion will be provided on a reimbursement basis and drawn from an additional Rs. 7.5 billion allocated to the ministry for the 2026 Yala procurement programme. On the reporting, that leaves Rs. 5 billion of the supplementary allocation still unreleased.
The proposal was submitted by the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation.
Context
The PMB’s Yala operation has been running under pressure. By 11 September the board had purchased 64,838 metric tonnes of paddy, and the President used a visit to the board that week to press on purchasing and the fertiliser subsidy. Farmers in Hingurakgoda — in Polonnaruwa, one of the five districts named in Tuesday’s decision — protested for a second day on 12 September.
Four of the five districts where harvesting is unfinished are in the dry zone, which is also where the drought affecting more than 160,000 people has been concentrated. Neither report connects the two.
Not reported
Neither outlet gives the guaranteed price the PMB is paying, the tonnage the additional Rs. 2.5 billion is expected to buy, or how much of the Yala harvest remains unpurchased. Neither says when the money will reach the board, what “reimbursement basis” means for the board’s cash position in the meantime, or what the remaining Rs. 5 billion of the supplementary allocation is earmarked for.
Sources: Daily Mirror, Hiru News.
