Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2018-02-14

Prevention of the current misuse of Kerosene

- Since most of the low income communities in Sri Lanka use kerosene for the requirements such as lighting houses etc, the Government provides a large subsidy in respect of the same. The consumption of kerosene by the rural community has declined since electricity is provided for the rural areas to a great extent. Nevertheless, the consumption of local kerosene during the past couple of months has greatly increased and it is found that the instant increase in consumption of kerosene has been caused due to modifying engines and mixing kerosene with petrol illegally by some parties to enable to drive long distance buses and lorries by using kerosene instead of diesel for the reason of the concessionary price of kerosene. It has also come to light that the mixing takes place through hired bowsers while transporting of fuel from the depots to the respective dealer filling stations.

Taking into consideration the necessity of taking expeditious action to prevent this situation, the joint proposal made by H.E. the President Maithripala Sirisena and Hon. Arjuna Ranatunga, the Minister of Petroleum Resources Development, to take necessary action to revoke the dealership of the fuel filling stations who are engaged in illegally mixing of fuel or in other illegal activities relating to kerosene or assisting in such activities, was approved by the Cabinet.