• 2,700 traders fined for selling above MRP

Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe said that although the rice variety Keeri Samba accounts for around 15 per cent of the country's total rice requirement, Sri Lanka is able to meet only about 7% of that demand after severe crop losses caused by Cyclone Ditwah.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday (23), he said that the Government had planned cultivation over an extent sufficient to produce more than 12% of the country's total rice requirement in the form of Keeri Samba. However, he said that nearly 108,000 hectares of paddy cultivation were damaged due to Ditwah, significantly reducing the expected harvest. "As a result, we could only obtain a harvest sufficient to meet around 7% of the country's total Keeri Samba rice requirement instead of the expected 15%. We therefore didn’t receive an adequate harvest, which led to a shortage of Keeri Samba in the local market," he said.

To address the situation, he said that the Government had decided to import Keeri Ponni rice as a substitute for Keeri Samba.

He said that some traders had exploited the shortage by selling Keeri Samba at prices exceeding the maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs. 260 per kilogram. Speaking further, Samarasinghe said that the Consumer Affairs Authority had also intensified raids against traders selling Keeri Samba above the MRP. According to him, fines had been imposed on more than 2,700 traders during the first six months of this year (2026) over the sale of Keeri Samba above the MRP.