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| Tuesday, 18 January 2005 |
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by Uditha Kumarasinghe The Government will grant a sum of Rs. 5,000 to each family displaced by the tsunami catastrophe as an immediate start-up allowance to commence their daily life in the affected areas. A list of these eligible persons in the affected areas have already been submitted to the Divisional Secretaries by the relevant Grama Niladharis. This list will be immediately sent to the People's Bank Managers in these affected areas, Finance and Planning Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama told a media briefing at his Ministry yesterday. The Minister said a decision has been taken to display the names of all affected families entitled for this grant at People's Bank branches and Divisional Secretariat offices in the disaster hit areas. The nearest People's Bank branch in the tsunami hit areas will open Savings accounts on behalf of each affected family and deposit Rs.5000 in their new accounts. For those who already possess a bank Savings account, the Rs. 5000 will be credited directly into such accounts. the Minister said. "Therefore, the Finance Ministry requests all affected families to go to their nearest People's bank branch and open a savings account on behalf of each family. The People's Bank will issue a very simple application to these families to open their accounts," he said. The intention of this whole move is to restore the daily life of the affected families and bring them to normal as soon as possible. The People's Bank intends to open savings accounts and provide this money to each affected family within this week, Dr. Amunugama said. Every such family will be provided the right to utilise this money as a start-up allowance to return to their normal life. The Finance Ministry has already given necessary instructions to all People's Bank Managers in these affected areas to provide this money to these tsunami victims, he said. Dr.Amunugama noted that the Government has decided to grant this immediate relief measure to the each affected family by treating it as a matter of national importance. People's Bank Chairman P.Amarasinghe said the Bank will immediately open savings accounts free of charge for each stricken family once the Bank received the lists from Grama Niladaris and Divisional Secretaries. |
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