Mar 18, Colombo: A trade union affiliated with Samurdhi, the poverty alleviation authority in Sri Lanka says that Samurdhi recipients have not received the subsidy payment for five months.

General Secretary of the Samurdhi Development Officers Union Chamara Maddumakaluge said that Samurdhi recipients have not received their payments from the Samurdhi Bank since last November.

He said that Samurdhi officers are faced with a great difficulty due to the nonpayment of the monthly subsidy to the recipients since the Samurdhi recipients are demanding that their subsidy payments be paid before the New Year in April and that the Samurdhi officers are unable to respond to their requests.

He explained that there are 1,516,000 Samurdhi recipients in the country and they were paid the subsidy through Samurdhi Banks since March 2012.

According to Maddumakaluge, the monthly subsidy is usually sent to the bank every month for the recipients to withdraw the monies, but the process has not taken place for five months.