He pointed out that the Ministry of Education has been continuously providing free school uniform material for about 4.2 million students in nearly 10,000 public and affiliated private schools since 1993 and about 2,300 million rupees were allocated annually for this purpose.

Main challenges faced by the government in provision of school uniform material to school children were to select the quality products and to distribute them in a due schedule. Moreover, the government has to spend a large cost for packaging, storing and delivering of these materials. Considering this situation, the proposal made by Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, Minister of Education, was approved by the Cabinet.

This purchasing procedure was done according to a national competitive bidding system and when it was confirmed by a cabinet decision to acquire total uniform material requirement from local producers, in 2015 whole consignment of school uniform material was purchased from the local apparel manufacturers. The problem of the quality of the material provided arose and from time to time the government also had to face the monopoly of apparel manufacturers and importers of cloths.

In addition to this, some practical issues such as a full time cadre to be appointed to procurement committees and staff, providing material on time, storing, maintenance, packing, transport and allocation of heavy expenditure for all these matters also emerged. After completing a deeper analysis to this matter the Ministry of Education has decided it is appropriate to issue a cash voucher instead of uniform material for school children.