Sri Lanka on Monday rolled out a welfare scheme funded by the World Financial institution and the Asian Growth Financial institution (ADB) to offer direct monetary aid to low-income households, the primary such programme after the nation plunged into an unprecedented financial disaster final yr.
The Aswasuma scheme, which replaces the Samurdhi advantages programme, nonetheless, has confronted opposition from lawmakers.
“We’re focusing on 2 million households to profit from the programme. Whereas 1.5 million households have been recognized with one other 1 million appeals and 120,000 disputed instances. A complete of 800,000 folks would obtain their advantages as we speak,” state finance minister Shehan Semasinghe mentioned.
Below 4 classes, the poor will obtain month-to-month money advantages starting from 2,500 to fifteen,000 rupees for 3 years from July this yr.
The opponents of the scheme say it’s a flawed programme because it solely recognises essentially the most weak for advantages and a lot of former Samurdhi beneficiaries have been not noted.
The dispute pressured the resignation final month of the chair of the Welfare Advantages Board.
Sri Lanka was hit by an unprecedented monetary disaster in 2022, the worst since its independence from Britain in 1948, attributable to a extreme paucity of overseas trade reserves. The financial disaster sparked widespread protests which led to the ouster of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
