The Minister of Trade, Johnston Fernando had made it compulsory for transport vegetables in plastic crates.
Reports say that legal action is been taken against drivers of lorries carrying vegetables without crates.
Lorry drivers and assistants say that they were severely inconvenienced due to the joint conduct of the Police and the Army.
They add that the vegetables were transported without crates because farmers are unable to afford the crates, which are priced at Rs. 1,600 each.
However, under this backdrop, today’s (12) activities of the Manning market in Colombo have been severely affected, reports say.
Meanwhile, lorries which have arrived at the Manning market to purchase vegetables have returned empty handed as they were unable to afford the plastic crates which were required to transport the goods.
Under this backdrop, there is a possibility of thousands of kilos of vegetables going bad, market reports say.