Kathmandu, March 21

The Department of Civil Registration under the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development has directed all district coordination committees, metropolitan cities, sub-metropolitan cities, municipalities and rural municipalities to distribute social security allowance to the beneficiaries in accordance with the amended Social Security Programme Operation Procedure, 2016.

According to DCR, social security allowance will be distributed through the newly created municipalities and rural municipalities. The DCCs have also been directed to allocate the needful amount to local levels. The DCR will be providing allowance to 2.3 million beneficiaries in the current fiscal and has already set aside over Rs 32.69 billion for this purpose.

Elderly citizens above 70 years, Dalits and locals of Karnali zone who are above 60 years of age and children of the same region who are below five years will be entitled to the allowance.

Similarly, the allowance would be provided to single women/widows, endangered communities and the disabled. Senior citizens will be provided with Rs 2,000 a month and rest of the others, except disabled, Dalits and children, will get Rs 1,000 monthly. Likewise, disabled holding red cards under the complete disabled category will get Rs 2,000 while blue card holders would get Rs 600. The children from the Karnali region, who are below five years and Dalits, will be provided Rs 400.

According to MoFALD, the details of nearly 1.3 million out of the total 2.3 million beneficiaries have been entered into the online system of the DCR. Until the implementation of the local level last month, as many as 118 municipalities and 180 village development committees had already started distributing monthly allowance to beneficiaries through the banking channel for its transparency.

The DCR is mandated to maintain records of personal incidents like birth, death, divorce and migration registered in the local level, and manage social security programme in the country.