NEW DELHI: India has delivered another 11,000 MT rice to the famine-struck Sri Lanka. The rice was shipped to the island ahead of its traditional new year celebrations.

The Sinhalese and Tamils celebrate New Year on April 13 and 14. India had also delivered 16,000 MT rice last week.

Meantime, the Sri Lankan Central Bank informed that they will temporarily suspend foreign debt payments to avoid a hard default with its limited foreign reserves required for imports of essential items such as fuel, on account of the current economic crisis, said Governor P Nandalal Weerasinghe.

“It has come to a point that making debt payments are challenging and impossible. The best action that can be taken is to restructure debt and avoid a hard default,” said Weerasinghe. With this, Sri Lanka’s loan programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in uncertainty.

Meantime, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has announced that fertilizer subsidy will be resumed to help farmers whose crops have been damaged due to the ban on fertilizers. The fertilizer subsidy was suspended last year, as part of the efforts to fully implement organic farming in Sri Lanka.

Piyankara Jayaratne and Shantha Bandara, who had withdrawn from the ruling coalition, have returned to their ministerial posts. Opposition leader Sajith Premadas, who had rejected the interim government plan, has said that all constitutional measures, including no-confidence motion, would be taken to oust the Rajapaksa government.