COLOMBO (News1st): President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has issued a gazette vesting a medical body with a ministry for the first time and reassigning six state institutions with effect from December 9.

The Sri Lanka Institute of Biotechnology, that had not been under any ministry previously, has been brought under the technology ministry, the directive published on Friday showed.

The department of commerce, previously vested with the foreign ministry has been brought under the trade ministry. However, the Sri Lanka Standards Institute that was under the trade ministry has been brought under the technology ministry.

The 1990 Suwaseriya Foundation, Department of Social Services, and the National Council for Elders and National Secretariat for Elders have been removed from the health ministry.

They will now fall under the newly-established State Ministry of Primary Health Care, Epidemics and COVID Disease Control.

Meanwhile, the national sports council has been reassigned to the sports ministry. It had been under the State Ministry of Rural and School Sports Infrastructure Improvement.

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