Minimum Samurdhi payment increased

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

The minimum Samurdhi payment will be increased up to Rs 1,000 while Rs 1,500 will be paid to every child in a Samurdhi family bellow the age of three. A low interest loan of Rs 100,000 will be provided to Samurdhi families to run a business. A low interest loan of Rs 200,000 will be provided to all female victims of the 87- 89 violence and for war widows, Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said. 3

Minister Yapa Abeywardena said that the relief will be granted under the election manifesto presented by the Government and apart from the low interest loan, the above women will be given the ownership of a land. A vocational training scholarship worth of Rs 400,000 will be provided for each child in Samurdhi families.

According to Minister Abeywardena the newspaper advertisement titled Chinthanaye Kadawunu Porondu is inaccurate and mislead the public because the Government has already granted what was promised. The Divisional Secretaries will provide proof for the granted benefits such as bicycles for Samurdhi recipients, mid day meal payment for schools and the Nutrition Sack.

The families which are entitled to receive Samurdhi benefits but excluded in the scheme will be given an opportunity to get enrolled in the program. Jana Sabha Secretariats will be set up and around four Samurdhi animators will be appointed for one secretariat in order to detect the eligible families and to enroll them in the Samurdhi program. Foreign reserves of the Government has gone up and the expenditure has gone down because of the end of the war. Therefore, the Government is capable of granting these reliefs, he added.