Paddy farmers will receive between Rs.10,000 and Rs.20,000 directly to their bank accounts from the today.

The Ministry of Agriculture said the Rs.8 billion awarded by the Asian Development Bank to be granted to all farmers in Sri Lanka will be credited to their bank accounts today (29).

800,000 hectares of paddy has been cultivated during the Maha season while paddy fields that have yielded crops thus far amounts to 760,000 hectares.

The Ministry of Agriculture said the fields belong to 1.2 million farming families and owing to the crop damage during the previous Maha season, the ADB provided Rs.8 billion to Sri Lanka on the request of President Ranil Wickremesinghe to compensate farmers.

Accordingly, Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera instructed the Department of Agrarian Development to credit Rs.10,000 to bank accounts of farmers’ with one hectare of paddy and Rs.20,000 to farmers with two hectares of paddy.