{"id":126271,"date":"2022-06-14T16:11:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T23:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=126271"},"modified":"2022-06-14T16:11:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T23:11:15","slug":"take-holiday-to-grow-your-own-food-civil-servants-told-by-sri-lankan-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/06\/14\/take-holiday-to-grow-your-own-food-civil-servants-told-by-sri-lankan-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Take holiday to grow your own food, civil servants told by Sri Lankan government"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The South China Morning Post<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Officials granted leave for one working day a week and \u2018provided with the facilities to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards\u2019, cabinet said<\/li><li>The country\u2019s unprecedented economic downturn has left staple foods in short supply and 4 out of 5 people in the nation of 22 million were forced to skip meals<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image-14-1024x683.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-126272\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Crisis-hit Sri Lanka is asking civil servants to take an extra day off each week to grow crops in their backyards in a bid to forestall a looming food shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The island nation\u2019s unprecedented economic downturn has left several staple foods in short supply, along with petrol and medicines, and rampant inflation is ravaging household budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems appropriate to grant government officials leave for one working day of the week and provide them with the necessary facilities to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards,\u201d a cabinet statement said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The extra day off would be a solution to the food shortage that is expected to occur in the future\u201d, the statement read, adding that cutting down on civil servant commutes would also help reduce fuel consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/asia\/south-asia\/article\/3181383\/sri-lanka-pm-ranil-wickremesinghe-open-buying-russian-oil?module=hard_link&amp;pgtype=article\">Sri Lanka PM open to buying Russian oil, accepting China\u2019s financial help12 Jun 2022<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week the United Nations warned Sri Lanka was facing a dire humanitarian crisis\u201d, and said four out of five people in the nation of 22 million were forced to skip meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Motorists, meanwhile, have suffered through months of chronic petrol and diesel shortages, and long queues of vehicles outside filling stations are a regular sight around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Public employees will have every Friday off for the next three months without a pay cut, according to the cabinet decision, but the arrangement will not apply to essential services staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government also said any members of the 1.5 million-strong public sector who wanted to travel abroad to find work would be given up to five years of unpaid leave without affecting their seniority or pensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&#039;Sometimes I sleep in the tuk-tuk: taxi mum among the casualties of Sri Lanka\u2019s economic crisis\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0drmvmZ9d2I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8216;Sometimes I sleep in the tuk-tuk: taxi mum among the casualties of Sri Lanka\u2019s economic crisis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The move is aimed at encouraging more people to get foreign jobs and send money back to the island, which is labouring under a critical shortage of foreign currency to buy imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka has defaulted on its US$51 billion foreign debt and is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Public protests have demanded the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over mismanagement of the country\u2019s economy and the severe hardships facing its people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rajapaksa introduced sweeping tax cuts soon after coming to power in November that have been blamed for leaving the island without the means to pay for essential imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cash shortfall was worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, which savaged the local tourism industry and cut remittances sent back home by Sri Lankans working abroad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The South China Morning Post Officials granted leave for one working day a week and \u2018provided with the facilities to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards\u2019, cabinet said The country\u2019s unprecedented economic downturn has left staple foods in short supply and 4 out of 5 people in the nation of 22 million were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}