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ECONOMY, SOCIETY

PM Oli announces to raise elderly allowance from next fiscal year

KATHMANDU, March 30: The government is all set to raise the amount for allowance of senior citizens from the next fiscal year starting from July 16.
By Republica

KATHMANDU, March 30: The government is all set to raise the amount for allowance of senior citizens from the next fiscal year starting from July 16.


Speaking at a program organized by Reporters Club Nepal on Tuesday, Prime Minister KP Oli, said the government will be revising the social security allowance through the upcoming budget. Earlier, the CPN-UML through the election manifesto had pledged to increase the old age allowance to Rs 5,000 per person per month in five years of its tenure.


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At present, senior citizens above 65 years are entitled to receive Rs 3,000 in monthly social security allowance. Through the budget for 2019/20, the government had revised the allowance amount from previous Rs 2,000 a month.


The senior citizen allowance scheme was for the first time introduced by former finance minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari in 1994-95 starting with Rs 100 for people aged over 75. The allowance sum remained the same for eight years. It was during Adhikari’s second tenure as a finance minister in 2004-05 when the allowance was raised to Rs 175.  


The allowance sum was later increased to Rs 500 during Baburam Bhattarai’s tenure as a finance minister in 2008. The sum was doubled to Rs 1,000 by the Nepali Congress (NC)-led government in 2014 when Ram Sharan Mahat was the finance minister.


In 2015, the then finance minister Bishnu Paudel of the erstwhile CPN-UML government again doubled the senior citizen allowance to Rs 2,000.


 

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