Amid economic turmoil, Sri Lanka has decided to turn off its street lights to save electricity, power minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi said on Thursday.

The island nation is currently facing its worst economic crisis in decades that is bringing more power cuts and gloom to its main stock market, triggering a halt in trade as prices slid.

The country with 22 million people is struggling with rolling power cuts for up to 13 hours a day as the government is unable to make payments for fuel imports because of a lack of foreign exchange.

“We have already instructed officials to shut off street lights around the country to help conserve power,” Power Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi told reporters.

He further said that a diesel shipment under a $500 million credit line from neighbouring India is expected to arrive on Saturday.

She however warned that the situation was not likely to improve any time soon.

“Once that arrives, we will be able to reduce load shedding hours but until we receive rain, probably some time in May, power cuts will have to continue,” she said.

“There’s nothing else we can do,” she added.

It may be mentioned that the economic crisis is a result of badly timed tax cuts and also the impact of COVID-19 pandemic along with historically weak government finances, leading to foreign exchange reserves dropping by 70% in the last two years.

With this, Sri Lanka was left with reserves of $2.31 billion as of February, forcing the government to seek help from the International Monetary Fund and other countries, including India and China.

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