Only India providing us money for fuel, says Sri Lankan PM Ranil Wickremesinghe

Colombo, 09 June (FMNews) --Troubled by the economic crisis, Sri Lanka's troubles are increasing instead of decreasing. Even now no country, except the neighboring country of India, is coming forward to help him.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday said that except India, no country is providing money for fuel to the troubled country. In parliament, Wickremesinghe said he has urged International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva to send a team to Colombo "as soon as possible" to finalize an employee-level agreement. Sri Lanka is asking for $6 billion from the IMF to survive the next six months.

Referring to the planned strike by engineers of the state-run Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), Wickremesinghe said, "Please don't cause a blackout, you can strike with placards if you want." He made an emotional appeal to the engineers and said that if you do this, do not ask me to ask India for help. No country is giving us money for fuel and coal. India is giving. Our Indian credit line is now nearing its end. We are talking about increasing it.

According to a report, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe further said that India cannot provide continuous assistance to Sri Lanka. He said that some people in India are asking why they should help us. Before helping us, they are telling us to help ourselves first.

A union of the power sector in Sri Lanka said on Wednesday it would go on an indefinite strike from midnight to protest against a new government law that could potentially lead to power outages.

The engineers' union said that 900 of the nearly 1,100 engineers at Sri Lanka's leading power company Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) will not be on duty on Thursday and those already working on power plants, transmission and distribution facilities will die at midnight. Will leave. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has sought a loan of $55 million from India for the purchase of urea.

India has provided funding of $3.5 billion in the form of loans and buyers' loans for food, medicine and fuel.

It is noteworthy that Sri Lanka is facing acute shortage of essential items ranging from food, fuel, medicines, cooking gas to toilet paper and match sticks. For the past few months, people have to stand in long queues to buy limited stocks.