Sri Lanka removes 425,000 families from Aswesuma lists

Around 425,000 families will be removed from Sri Lanka’s Aswesuma benefit lists from today (June 30).

Minister of Rural Development, Social Security and Community Empowerment Dr. Upali Pannilage said these families had temporarily fallen into poverty due to the economic crisis in 2022.

He said they had been identified under the marginal category of the Aswesuma lists.

According to the Minister, these families were scheduled to be removed from the lists last December. However, due to the disaster situation caused by Cyclone Ditwah, they were allowed to remain on the lists for another six months.

Many of these families had received a benefit allowance of around Rs. 5,000.

Minister Upali Pannilage also said around 400,000 families in the transitional category had already been removed from the Aswesuma lists earlier.

He stated that only around 1.3 million families belonging to the extremely poor and poor categories currently remain on the Aswesuma lists.

Accordingly, more than 900,000 families are in the extremely poor category, while more than 400,000 families are in the poor category.

An allowance of Rs. 17,500 is paid to extremely poor families, while Rs. 10,000 is paid to poor families.