India will provide Sri Lanka additional financial assistance of $500 million, or over Rs 3,813 crore, GL Peiris, the country’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday, reported Reuters.

The money will be used to help the island country buy fuel, Peiris said.

Sri Lanka has been mired in public debt over the last few months. Amid a decline in the country’s foreign currency reserves, Sri Lankans are facing shortages of medicines, milk powder, cooking gas, kerosene and other essential items.

On March 18, New Delhi had extended a line of credit worth $1 billion, or over Rs 7,600 crore, to support Colombo to manage the economic meltdown. In January too, India had provided $1.4 billion, over Rs 10,661 crore, in support to Sri Lanka that included a line of credit and deferral of a loan.

On Wednesday, the Sri Lankan foreign minister also said that Bangladesh was also willing to postpone a swap repayment of $450 million, or over Rs 3,433 crore.

Swap repayment is an mechanism in which a party makes a series of payments in one form in exchange of receiving another set of payment in a different form. In Sri Lanka’s case, which is facing shortage of foreign reserves, the country is using the mechanism to swap currency.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday said that it has asked Sri Lanka to restructure its foreign debt before a bailout programme could be finalised for it.

Sri Lanka had approached the financial body seeking a bailout programme after it had announced that it would default on its entire external debt worth $51 billion, or over Rs 3.88 lakh crore. A country’s external debt pertains to the money borrowed by it from foreign lenders through commercial banks, governments or international financial institutions.

Debt restructuring allows a company or a nation in financial distress to reduce or renegotiate lower interest rates on loans taken or extend payment due dates.

Finance Minister Ali Sabry had reportedly made the request during a meeting with the the financial body’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that New Delhi remains committed to strengthening the Sri Lankan economy, according to the island country’s foreign ministry.

This is Sri Lanka’s worst economic meltdown since it gained independence from Britain in 1948.

The shortages of commodities have led to widespread protests against the Sri Lankan government. On Tuesday, one person was killed and 15 were injured in Rambukkana town after the police opened fire to disperse those protesting.

On April 3, Sri Lanka’s entire Cabinet, except President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, had resigned from their positions, owing to the crisis.