President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is due to present a Cabinet-approved concessional relief package in Parliament on Tuesday (7), Leader of the House Minister Bimal Rathnayake confirmed, with the measures targeting households and sectors hit by the Middle East energy crisis.
Rathnayake told reporters that Cabinet had approved the package and the President would brief the House directly. “The President will brief the Parliament today on the proposed relief package, which has been approved by the Cabinet,” he said.
The package was drafted by a committee chaired by Minister Upali Pannilage, which has been reviewing welfare needs arising from rising fuel costs and the wider fallout from the Hormuz closure. Specific measures, eligibility thresholds and implementation dates are expected to be detailed in the President’s parliamentary address.
The announcement follows a rapid sequence of fiscal relief measures rolled out over the past week. Dissanayake confirmed a Rs. 100 per litre diesel subsidy at the launch of the National QR Payment Adoption Programme earlier on Tuesday, and Cabinet separately cleared a fuel subsidy for the fisheries sector — Rs. 50 per litre for small boats and Rs. 150,000 per trip for multi-day vessels — effective April 20.
The wider cost-of-living backdrop has sharpened political pressure on the government. LAUGFS and Litro lifted LP gas prices in early April, pushing restaurant and dairy costs higher, while fuel rationing, the Wednesday holiday cancellation and the April 16–17 work-from-home directive remain in place. Opposition parties have tabled relief proposals of their own and filed a no-confidence motion against Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, due for debate on April 10.
Full details of the concessional package were not public at the time of Rathnayake’s briefing and were expected to emerge during the President’s parliamentary address.
