Acute shortage for wheat flour in Colombo due to price hike

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 October 2010, 12:57 GMT]
An acute shortage for wheat flour prevails in Colombo as traders have hoarded their stocks expecting price of wheat flour to be increased by Sri Lanka government, sources in Colombo said. SL government had raised the price of wheat flour twice in the recent past and the price of 450 gm bread has shot up from 40 rupees to 44 rupees with the price hike of 8 rupees per kilo wheat flour enforced from Saturday midnight. The people hit most by the rise of price of bread are the plantation workers in the central hills who eat bread for all three meals of the day. Most of the people in Colombo who eat bread for breakfast and dinner too are badly affected, the sources added.

SL government had increased the price of wheat flour from 63 rupees to 73.50 rupees in June 2010. It has again been raised by 8 rupees Saturday midnight and the new price of wheat flour in 81.50 rupees.

Consequently bakeries in Sri Lanka have raised the prices of all food items made out of flour.

Meanwhile, with the price hike bread is being sold at various increased prices in the districts other than Colombo and the weight of the bread sold is mostly less than the fixed weight.

Though the price of wheat flour had been increased twice in the recent past the price of bread had remained unchanged.