Sri Lanka Crisis: India To Provide Another $500 Mn Aid To Island Nation To Buy Fuel

Sri Lanka: The additional aid comes after a one billion dollar line of credit provided by New Delhi to Colombo earlier this month to keep the food and fuel prices in the country under check.

Sri Lanka has been facing its worst-ever economic crisis | Getty Images

New Delhi: As the economic crisis seems to deepen in Sri Lanka, India will provide an additional amount of 500 million dollars as financial assistance to buy fuel, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister told reporters on Wednesday. News agency Reuters reported that Bangladesh is also willing to postpone a 450 million dollars swap payment. 

“Assistance by the IMF will take about six months to come to us and it will come in tranches. During the intervening period, we need to find funds to keep our people supplied with essentials,” Sri Lankan Foreign Minister GL Peiris was quoted as saying by Reuters. 

The additional aid comes after a one billion dollar line of credit provided by New Delhi to Colombo earlier this month to keep the food and fuel prices in the country under check.

India had also sent a 500 million dollar aid to Sri Lanka in February to purchase petroleum products for the country as it faces the worst ever economic crisis in its history.

On April 7, India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that India was ready to continue to support Sri Lanka.

"Since mid-March, over 270,000 metric tonnes of diesel and petrol have been delivered to Sri Lanka. In addition, around 40,000 tonnes of rice have been supplied under the recently extended USD 1 billion credit facility," Bagchi had said.

And the recent aid that is being provided to the island nation comes as it gets buried under debt. Sri Lanka declared default on its $51 billion external debt on April 12.

Meanwhile, the anti-government protests escalated as the police opened fire at the protestors leaving one dead and 13 others injured. 15 police personnel also sustained injuries during these protests.

Sri Lanka has been going through an acute shortage of basic amenities like food, fuel, medicines, etc. It is also facing power cuts for as long as 12 hours a day. The country has been trying hard to get an aid of 4 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a while which may take three to four months to reach the country.