President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has instructed Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena to seize the warehouses of large scale paddy mill owners and release their stocks of rice and paddy to the market.

These instructions were given at a Cabinet meeting chaired by the President on the 6th. Meanwhile, large scale paddy mill owners had earlier informed the President that they could not control the price of rice due to the accumulation of middle paddy.

However, the Consumer Affairs Authority has found hundreds of thousands of metric tons of paddy in unregistered warehouses and placed it under the Commissioner of Essential Services.

The government has also rejected a request made by large scale paddy mill owners to convert the stocks of paddy into rice.

 Accordingly, it is planned to hand over the paddy stocks owned by large scale paddy mill owners under the Commissioner of Essential Services to the small scale paddy mill owners and release rice to the market this week.