October 27:  The Council of Ministers has approved the work procedure to distribute Rs 10,000 each to the families affected by Covid-19. The work procedure prepared by the Ministry of Finance has been approved by the recent cabinet meeting.

Replacing the ordinance budget of the current fiscal Year 2078/79, the new budget presented by the incumbent government led by Sher Bahadur Deuba, had announced to distribute Rs 5 billion to the poor families hit by COVID-19 pandemic. 

The cabinet has approved the amended work procedure submitted by MoF. Earlier, the cabinet  was reluctant to approve the work procedure as it could not define the exact number of poor households and what kind of poor families would receive the relief package. 

Government Spokesperson Gyanendra Bahadur Karki informed that the cabinet has decided to approve the work  procedure 2078 to distribute cash relief packages to the poor  families affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

It has now paved the way for the government to distribute Rs 5 billion  to 500,000 families. The government is relying on the studies conducted by the National Planning Commission for distributing this relief amount. According to the study, five million people are below the multidimensional poverty line in the country. The work procedure has been prepared considering at least five members in a family, with the objective to reach 2.5 million people of 500,000 households.

The government has planned to provide the cash amount to the poor family members in their respective bank accounts after completing the process while the families without bank accounts will be provided cash through the respective local bodies. 

Two neighbors of the poor family have to recommend that the family is poor and the concerned ward chairperson has to certify the recommendation. Then the family will receive Rs 10,000 each from the government.