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The movement of essential goods and other items to the North has been doubled for the Sinhala and Hindu New Year Festival. Commissioner General of Essential Services, Sripathy Sooriaratchchi said that sufficient stocks of food and other items have already being dispatched to the rebel held areas in the North as well as the Government held areas. He also said, “The District Secretaries have been informed to release 2500 metric tons of essential food items to Co-operative Wholesale Establishments (CWE) in these areas in order to stabilise the prices of consumer goods.” “The freight charges have also been reduced from $60 to $30 and $25 as directed by President Kumaratunga,” Sooriaratchchi said. Weekly flights between Colombo and Jaffna have been increased from 12 to 18 to meet the growing demand. Around 500 passengers are being ferried between Jaffna and Colombo daily. The passenger vessel, ‘City of Trinco’ which was temporarily withdrawn last January due to bad weather conditions, has now begun operations. Meanwhile, Additional Secretary to the Defence Ministry, Mr. W.A.S. Perera said, “The people in the cleared areas do not face any scarcity of food and the people living in uncleared areas are allowed to purchase upto 40 kilos of goods from Vavuniya”. Earlier, people in rebel held areas were not allowed access to the town of Vavuniya.
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