Reduced To One Meal

People are having only one meal a day, so many have lost their homes due to the floods, CT/Cargills Group Managing Director Ranjit Page addressing a seminar in Colombo on Saturday said.
Page, who claimed that he closely inter-acts with the farmer community, told this reporter that their Tambuttegama collection centre has been affected by the rains.
Cargills and Arpico supermarket sources said that they have reduced the quantity of vegetables they buy because prices have become dearer, hence the consumer avoiding such purchases and, as a result, increases in spoilage, where such retail companies have to take the hit.
Meanwhile Page continuing said that they can raise the prices of items that they vendor by a few cents, thereby making millions as a result, thus contributing to shareholder happiness, but he won’t do that because it will be the consumer who will ultimately have to suffer.
“The world is turning around from the recession. Investment opportunities to Sri Lanka may be taken to other countries. How do we attract them? We must take the risk,” he, in answer to his own question told the audience.
Page was speaking at a function called “I Eccellenza ’11” organized by Zahira College Colombo’s Group of 2000.
Page’s Cargills supermarket chain has over 150 retail outlets islandwide.  He however told this reporter that once the rains go away vegetable prices will come down.
He said that he was happy that the army was involved in vegetable sales as that was good for the farmer.
From four departmental stores to over 150 islandwide, and starting from a loan of Rs. 1.7 million extended when Mrs. Rohini Nanayakkara was the General Manager Bank of Ceylon, was the beginning of the Cargills supermarket chain, which cadre strength during this period increased from 300 to 6,800.
Sri Lanka is now a new country after the war end. There are many people who want to start business in Sri Lanka. But have we generated business in rural Sri Lanka? Doing business in Colombo or the Western Province won’t do. Do we say it’s our job to help the farmer? To add value to agriculture? he asked, claiming that his organization supports 10,000 farmer families.

Complementing Page
CT/Cargills Group Managing Director Ranjit Page’s claim of some people living on only one meal a day appears to be true.
On Tuesday as I was walking to catch a bus to office in Mt.Lavinia, a man, apparently in his thirties, thin, looking weak, stunted and under-nourished who was walking ahead of me, stopped in his tracks and spoke to me.
He said that he was returning from Kalubowila hospital after receiving some treatment.
I didn’t ask him what his ailment was. He had walked all the way from Kalubowila after receiving treatment, he said, claiming that he is living in Panadura. He had no food, and asked me for some money to buy some food. Regrettably I too didn’t have money and was not in a position to help him. Unless he was a liar, then, Page’s claim of some people living on only a meal a day may well be true.