The main Opposition, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) claimed that the Government’s interventions to uplift the plantation sector are minimal, and that addressing long-overdue issues should be one of the priorities of the Government.

SJB Parliamentarian Sujith Sanjaya Perera made these remarks during a press briefing held yesterday (11). “Tea exports have declined this year compared to the past few years. The highest contribution to tea exports comes from small-scale tea producers. However, today, they have had to bear massive expenses. The biggest issue that they are facing is the fertiliser issue. Despite that, the Government has not yet taken steps to address that issue,” he claimed, adding that although the Government promised solutions when the matter was raised in the Parliament by the SJB, no concrete action has been taken yet.

Perera further claimed that even though an application form has been formulated to obtain fertiliser, it has been issued only to tea factories and that those forms are therefore available only to those supplying tea leaves to those factories. Adding that this system is flawed as far as small tea estate owners are concerned, he said that there is no system at present to provide them with the fertiliser subsidy.