The fuel oil has finally reached Sri Lanka, which has been crying out for diesel for more than two weeks. A ship carrying 40,000 tonnes of diesel arrived in the port of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, on Saturday, Indian media NDTV reported.
The price of this 40,000 tons of diesel is 1 billion dollars. India has paid for this. Diesel will be delivered to all parts of the country from the capital by Saturday evening, Sri Lankan officials said.
Sri Lanka could not buy fuel from the international market due to insufficient foreign exchange reserves; But the lack of diesel has been severely disrupting normal life in the country for more than two weeks now.
The lack of diesel has drastically reduced production at the country’s power plants, forcing ordinary people on the South Asian island nation to go without electricity for 10-12 or even 13 hours a day for the past month or so.
For the same reason, the country’s public transport system was almost paralyzed. Very few buses have been running in the country since Thursday; And almost all the buses that are running are official.
Most hospitals in the country shut down surgery due to lack of diesel and electricity.
As the country prepares to deal with the damage, the Corona epidemic strikes — which has almost shut down the tourism sector for two long years. As a result, the country’s reserves were strained and the supply could not be increased as the supply of foreign exchange was drastically reduced. At present, Sri Lanka’s financial debt to foreign countries is more than 51 billion.
However, Murtaza Jafarji of the Advocate Institute, a Colombo-based think tank, blamed the government’s mismanagement for the country’s recent woes.
