Sri Lanka fuel crisis: Govt declares week-long holiday for schools from tomorrow

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Sri Lankan schools will remain shut for a week as the country faces a severe fuel crisis. The Education Ministry on Sunday declared that all government schools across the nation will be given holidays from July 4 to 8.    

The Ministry officials, Provincial Education Secretaries, and other officials took this decision after it was observed that the school principals, teachers, and students had poor attendance. This was mainly due to the lack of transport with the non-availability of fuel for public transport and personal vehicles.

The government-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) stopped issuing fuel to any vehicle other than those involved in essential services, etc health, public transportation, law and order, food distribution and etc.

People were asked to work from home and urban schools were closed while others requested to teach online. All private vehicles had to depend on Indian Oil Company-run fuel stations around the country which issued limited fuel to different vehicles.

With the ongoing fuel crisis, the Indian Ocean island nation has come to a standstill with a handful of vehicles on roads and many people opting to use bicycles as mode of transportation.

For fuel, Sri Lanka had been mainly depending on line of credit issued by India under its $3.5 billion financial assistance given from January this year and the supply ended with the final shipment of 40,000 metric tonnes of diesel received on June 16.

As Sri Lanka faced its worst-ever economic crisis, the United Nations World Food Programme had declared food inflation in Colombo at record high of 57.4 percent in May and around five million people, or 22 per cent of the population, are food insecure and in need of assistance.

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