SL seeks cooking gas from India

Sri Lanka has started a process to import cooking gas through a credit line arrangement with India, the chair of the country's staterun gas company Litro Gas said on Friday as he resigned from his post alleging that a gas mafia was engaged in corruption amidst the country's worst economic crisis.

Sri Lanka is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in history. With long lines for fuel, cooking gas, essentials in short supply and long hours of power cuts, the public has been suffering for months.

Theshara Jayasinghe, the Chairman and CEO of Litro Gas, the country's largest importer and supplier of cooking gas, said in his resignation letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa: "I had initiated a process through the Indian High Commission to obtain an Indian credit line to import gas. This could be easily implemented".

Jayasinghe said he was resigning as he did not receive the fullest cooperation from the government and had come under pressure from what he called a gas mafia operating against him.

"There is massive corruption in the gas business," Jayasinghe said.

Cooking gas shortage is just one of the scarcities that the public had to face in the island nation's worst economic crisis since independence.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's state-owned petroleum corporation announced fuel rationing for vehicles with effect from Friday, as an unprecedented economic crisis roils the country.

According to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) statement, now motorcycles and other two-wheelers can purchase fuel upto worth Rs 1,000 per visit to a fuel station.