Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi had submitted a Cabinet paper seeking allocations for the payment of the Rs. 5000 allowance for 7.4 million recipients affected by the Covid-19 for the month of April and the Cabinet paper for Treasury approval for this payment again for May, said Co-Cabinet Spokesman Minister Dr Bandula Gunawardena.
Addressing the weekly Cabinet briefing held at the Government Information Department he said in order to grant relief to those affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, the Rs. 5000 payment would be paid for the second time to 5,144,046 recipients. The Health Minister had submitted a Cabinet paper for the allocation of Rs. 25,720 million from the Treasury for this purpose which had been approved by the Cabinet.
Accordingly, for 629,214 senior citizens to receive the Rs. 5000 allowance Rs. 3,146 million will be allocated, another Rs. 2.4 million for the payment of the allowance for 489 elderly persons over the age of 100, Rs, 619 million for the payment of allowance for 123,641 disabled persons and Rs. 221 million for the 44,291 persons suffering from kidney ailments.
It was also stated that so far even the elderly and disabled persons on the waiting lists have been paid this allowance. There are 797,635 elderly, disabled and kidney patients in the country and the amount allocated for the payment of the allowance for them is Rs. 3,988 million.
In addition to those who had appealed to the Prime Minister for this payment, another 71,383 elderly, disabled and kidney patients have been identified by the rural committees and another Rs. 356 million has also been allocated for them.
Therefore, Rs. 8,991.47 billion has been allocated for the 1,798,293 Samurdhi recipients, Rs. 3,659.87 million has been allocated for the Samurdhi recipients on the waiting list 1 and 2, another Rs. 9,624.84 million has been allocated for the low income families identified by the rural committees and 1,924,967 families that have directly and indirectly lost their livelihood and another Rs. 3,444.46 million has been allocated as per the circular issued by the Prime Minister’s Office for the payment of the allowance for 688,811 identified persons.
Accordingly, the minister noted that this allowance will be paid to the recipients by about the next week.