“Fair Price Shops” will be established countrywide with private sector participation as a strategy to control the Cost of Living targeting the forthcoming Christmas and New Year season.

A Budget Pack containing eight essential consumer items including Rice, Dhal, Sugar, Sprats, B Onions, Potatoes and canned fish will be issued to the market through these shops as a measure to ease the Cost of Living burden. This decision was taken at a discussion presided over by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Prime Minister’s Office in a press release said this measure has been taken by the government as a strategy of offering several essential consumer items of which prices have escalated in recent times, to the consumers at an affordable price in relation to cost outlay outside the price mechanism in the open market.

The decision was taken at a meeting presided by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and attended by Ministers Rishad Bathiutheen and Mangala Samaraweera and representatives of the related state institutions and the private sector.

It is also hoped to arrange at a distribution strategy for this Budget Pack to enable consumers to obtain it through the Private sector super market chain and Lak Sathosa sales centres.

The government has also decided to devise a strategy to introduce a concessionary electricity tarrif and provide some income tax relief to the Private Sector and state institutions involved in the provision of transport and marketing of these goods through this mechanism.

The release said leading super market and institutions such as ‘Lanka Sathosa, Cargills Food City, Laugfs, Richard Pieris and Company, John Keells Ltd. and Wickramaratne (Private) Ltd have already agreed to join this programme.