Gulmi elderly denied social security allowance for six months

GULMI: Elderly people of Gulmi have been deprived of social security allowance for the past six months.

The government provides the allowance to people including individuals above 70 years of age, single women and persons with disabilities on a monthly basis as a part of its social security scheme.

Denied the allowance for long, it has become a daily routine of the senior citizens of the district to visit and complain about the problem with concerned bodies like rural municipalities and municipalities. The payment should have been distributed by January 28 as per the Social Security Work Procedure.

When asked, Gopal Sen, chairman of VDC Secretary Welfare Protection Centre, said a failure of the then District Development Committee (DDC) to release the budget for allowance to the concerned authority created this situation.

However, Local Development Officer Kalpana Shrestha had a different story.

She said although the DDC has already sent a cheque to the District Treasury Controller Office for the allowance distribution, the cheque was stuck midway because of the restructuring of local levels.