Tamghas, March 30

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

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

Denied allowance for long, it has become a daily routine of senior citizens of the district to visit and complain about the problem with the concerned bodies such as rural municipalities and municipalities. The payment should have been distributed by January 28 as per the Social Security Work Procedure-2017.

When asked, Gopal Sen, chairman of VDC security welfare protection centre, said a failure of then District Development Committee to release the budget for allowance to the concerned authority on time was behind this situation.

However, Local Development Officer Kalpana Shrestha has a different story to tell.

She said although the DDC has sent a cheque to the District Treasury Controller Office for allowance distribution, the cheque has been stuck midway because of the restructuring of local-levels under the new federal set-up.