New Delhi, December 10:

Sri Lanka is set to buy at least 10,000 tonnes of food from India, to be shipped from Chennai to shortages-hit Jaffna in the island’s north, according to informed sources.

Arrangements are on to buy a wide variety of food items used in Tamil kitchens and transport them by the sea from Tamil Nadu. Separately, food items may also be shipped from Nagapattinam, also in Tamil Nadu, to Kayts Island, off Jaffna.

The decision follows meetings here late last month when president Mahinda Rajapakse and social services and social welfare minister Douglas Devananda of Sri Lanka urged prime minister Manmohan Singh to help overcome food shortages in Jaffna peninsula.

The Sri Lankan government’s closure of the only highway linking the mainland to the northern peninsula and the Tamil Tigers’ refusal to provide security guarantees to ships coming from Colombo to Jaffna have led to widespread shortages in the Tamil region.

According to aid workers, Jaffna residents queue up for hours to buy whatever is available in the government-run cooperative stores, and what else is sold in the market is too costly for everyone to afford.

The sources said that Sri Lanka had decided to buy in Tamil Nadu dry chili, coriander, rice flake, cumin seed, mustard, jaggery, iodine salt, tamarind, potato, black gram, green gram, turmeric, Soya, pappadam, dry fish, fenugreek and wheat flour.

These are said to be most in demand in Jaffna, with some items going completely off the market. This would total 10,000 tonnes and may be shipped from Chennai to Point Pedro in Jaffna in two or three ships.

The unloading operations are expected to take several days, the sources said.