Finance Ministry sends Rs 5 billion to local level to provide cash incentives to poor families

KATHMANDU: The Ministry of Finance on Tuesday approved a budget for the distribution of cash incentives to the poor households affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini said that the Ministry has given approval to send Rs 5 billion to the local level to provide a cash grant of Rs10, 000 each to 500,000 poor households.

“The Ministry has approved Rs 5 billion to provide cash incentives to the poor households. Now, the decks have been cleared for the local level to distribute cash to the poor families,” he said.

The government had brought a programme to distribute a cash grant of Rs 10, 000 each to 500,000 poor families affected by the Covid-19 pandemic through the budget of the current fiscal year.

The government has already formulated working procedure 2078 to handover cash incentives to the poor families affected by Covid-10 to give continuity to the same programme.

According to the working procedure, people should be the workers of unorganised sector who lost their jobs to the pandemic and haven’t got new jobs to participate in the programme.