ECONOMYNEXT – More than 135,000 Sri Lanka’s Aswesuma poverty alleviation beneficiaries cannot receive their monthly dues due to lack of bank accounts, a top government official said.
Despite the government has approved 1.8 million households as the Aswesuma beneficiaries from the last year’s applicants still around 200,000 beneficiaries have not received any benefits, the official said.
Aswesuma benefits are channeled only through a formal banking channel to selected beneficiary to prevent all elements of corruptions, government officials say.
“Around 135,000 people out of these 200,000 people have not opened bank accounts and we are unable to deposit their money,” Jayantha Wijerathne, the Chairman of Welfare Benefits Board, told EconomyNext on Monday (22).
“Some people may have taken loans and failed to repay the dues. Some are unable to open a new account because of their credit (CRIB) scores,” he said.
“Some are ignorance and they have not opened accounts despite requests. And some elderly and disable people are unable to open the accounts and we have asked government officials to help them. Once they open the account, they will receive all their past dues from July last year.”
President Ranil Wickremesinghe launched ambitious Aswesuma programme in mid last year to assist the poor and vulnerable people in the country after an unprecedented economic crisis. The World Bank has given funds for this year’s programme.
The government is also in the process of selecting the second batch of beneficiaries and has already received over 455,000 applicants. The government has estimated to provide benefits for 2.4 million needy people under four categories of extreme poor, poor, vulnerable, and transitional.
The latest data showed the government has selected 370,000 people under extreme poor category to provide 15,000 rupees monthly, 755,000 under poor category with monthly 8,500 payment, and 387,000 under vulnerable category with 5,000 rupees. 339,000 people under transitional category are also paid 5,000 rupees, officials said.
The government also has been paying 7,500 rupee monthly payment for disabled people while providing 5,000 rupees for over 70-years of elderly people. It has also granting a monthly allowance of 7,500 rupees for people with unidentified kidney diseases. (Colombo/July 22/2022)