India’s neighboring country Sri Lanka is going through a severe economic crisis these days. People troubled by the tremendous impact of inflation are now hopeless. Due to this they are forced to flee. A large number of people are fleeing the country illegally and running towards India. Due to the sudden increase in the prices of essential commodities and the scuffle at petrol pumps and fuel centers, on Tuesday, the government has deployed the army to maintain order there. People are forced to stand in queue for hours.
This nation settled in the Indian Ocean region is facing a foreign exchange crisis, due to which the devaluation of the currency was forced. The problem arose of paying for essential imports such as food, medicine and fuel. She had to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help. “The government has to find a solution,” said Sita Gunasekera, 36, who lives with her husband and two children in the capital Colombo.
“There is a lot of hardship and suffering,” Gunasekera said. She said that so much time has to be spent in the queue for fuel that nothing else is being done. Said that, “The prices of everything have gone up. We can hardly manage with what we earn daily.”
On the other hand, officials say that the decision to deploy troops near petrol pumps and kerosene supply centers had to be taken after the death of three elderly people waiting in long queues.
Government spokesperson Ramesh Pathirana said this was done after complaints of hoarding and irregularities in distribution. “The army has been deployed to help the people, not to prevent their human rights,” he said.
Military spokesman Nilantha Premaratne told Reuters that at least two military personnel would be deployed at each fuel pump to help organize fuel delivery, but soldiers would not be involved in crowd control.
Tension over shortfall in supplies led to sporadic violence while procuring fuel and other essentials. A man was stabbed to death on Monday in an argument with the driver of a three-wheeler, while three elderly people standing in a queue for fuel died in the scorching heat last week, police said.
The country is struggling for payments due to the rapid withdrawal of dollars from Sri Lanka. Currency reserves have fallen 70 per cent to $2.31 billion in the past two years. The country owes about $4 billion in debt for the rest of this year, including $1 billion in international sovereign bonds that mature in July.
Ahead of IMF talks in Washington in April, the government said it would hire a global law firm to provide technical assistance on debt restructuring to fight the crisis.