March 31 deadline to register for Samurdhi, other welfare benefits

The Finance Ministry emphasizes that those who do not register before March 31 to receive 52 welfare benefits, including Samurdhi, given by the Welfare Benefits Board, which operates under the Finance Ministry will not be entitled to those benefits.

If registration is not completed before March 31, there is a risk of not receiving assistance from the World Bank for this programme.

In that case, those receiving welfare benefits will not be able to receive the benefits, the Finance Ministry said.

According to the notification issued by the Welfare Benefits Board, to apply for benefits online, 3.7 million people had applied for the benefits through the online system. In order to check the eligibility of those people applying for Samurdhi and other welfare benefits, arrangements were made to conduct a census using field officers attached to the District Secretariat. Although 3.7 million have applied for benefits, only 65,000 people have been registered in the census so far.

The Finance Ministry points out that although a field officer is paid Rs.300 to complete one application form, the field officers belonging to some trade unions are acting to undermine the implementation of this programme citing various reasons.

The Finance Ministry states that some applicants are reluctant to provide information for the benefits as some field officials are spreading false information that the relevant information is collected from the beneficiaries to remove their names off the beneficiary list.

Therefore, the Finance Ministry requests the people not to get deceived by such false propaganda and register for the benefits if they are eligible, before March 31.

It is emphasized that only those who register before March 31 will be eligible to get 52 welfare benefits including Samurdhi.

The Ministry requests those who receive Samurdhi and other welfare benefits to go to the respective Divisional Secretariats in their area of residence or to the Grama Niladhari office and register before March 31. The government spends Rs.200 billion per year to provide Samurdhi and other benefits.