Over Rs. 1.75 b granted to tsunami victims in past two months
The Government during the past two months after the tsunami has granted
relief assistance exceeding Rs.1.75 billion to tsunami victims in the
form of financial assistance and other forms of material assistance.
This has been reported by the Social Services Ministry,
the key Ministry handling relief assistance to the tsunami victims, to
the Ministry of Finance after handling relief assistance for nearly two
months upto February 24.
The Government has spent this amount of money, Rs. 1.69
billion as financial assistance and the balance Rs.166 million to
provide dry rations for the displaced people.
According to reports, 975,417 people were displaced in
the disaster and out of them 849,227 have already been granted coupons
to obtain dry rations from respective Cooperative shops and other shops.
Therefore, more than 85 percent of tsunami affected people have been
provided with coupons to obtain their quota of dry rations.
The Government has provided a coupon worth Rs.375 per
each displaced person per week enabling them to purchase food items
worth Rs. 175 and other necessary items worth Rs.200.
Out of 165,137 people whose houses have been damaged,
131,475 have obtained Rs.2500 allowance granted by the Government to
purchase cooking equipment.
The Rs. 15,000 was paid as funeral expenses for the next
of kin of each dead victim of the tsunami disaster, have been released
on behalf of 15,745 persons who died in the disaster.
The bodies of 17,220 persons have been identified
following the disaster and people have not come forward to claim this
payment on behalf of 1,575 dead people.
The total number of people killed in the disaster has
been counted as 30,974 and another 4,698 people were reported missing.
The number of injured were 23,176.
According to Government statistics a bigger share of
this assistance has gone to the North and East as the largest number of
people, more than 100,000, were from the North and East. |
