• Beneficiaries drop to 1,251,522 as of Aug.  

The Welfare Benefits Board (WBB) expects to complete the recertification of beneficiaries enrolled in the first phase of the Aswesuma welfare benefit programme by 29 September and publish the final list following board approval, WBB Chairman Nimal Kotawalagedara has said. 

Kotawalagedara told The Sunday Morning that recertification had progressed slowly in certain divisions and districts, preventing the WBB from releasing the finalised list. 

“We expect to complete the process by 29 September so that we can obtain board approval and display the list,” he said.

Kotawalagedara added that beneficiary numbers could still increase once information was updated. He stressed that the recertification process would not necessarily result only in a reduction in beneficiaries.

He also maintained that any reduction in beneficiary numbers was being made in accordance with criteria set out in the gazette approved by Parliament, rather than through an arbitrary administrative decision.

“The reduction is taking place according to the gazette that was approved by Parliament,” he said, adding that it would be difficult to determine whether the overall number of eligible beneficiaries had actually declined until the recertified list was finalised.

The remarks followed the disclosure by Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Dr. Anil Jayantha Fernando in Parliament on Friday (11) that the number of beneficiaries receiving Aswesuma benefits had fallen to 1,251,522 as of August 2026, compared to 2,439,917 recorded in 2025. 

He was responding to a question from Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa on whether the reduction had been carried out on the instructions of the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Rejecting the suggestions, Fernando said that the reassessment of beneficiaries had been mandated under the Welfare Benefits Act No.24 of 2002 from the programme’s inception in 2023.

According to Fernando, the programme had 1,773,445 beneficiaries when it was launched in 2023, with the figure standing at 1,761,116 by December 2024. The number had then risen to 2,439,917 in 2025 before dropping to 1,251,522 by August 2026.

The Deputy Minister attributed the decline to the winding down of two of the scheme’s four original categories.

Aswesuma benefits were initially distributed under four categories: extremely poor, poor, vulnerable, and transitional. The transitional category was originally scheduled to end in April 2025, while payments to the vulnerable category ended in June 2026, leaving only the extremely poor and poor categories currently receiving benefits.

“According to the original schedule, the remaining two categories will continue until June 2027. The re-survey will determine the final number of eligible beneficiaries, which currently stands at around 1.2 million,” Fernando told the House.

Fernando said that the initial monthly Aswesuma allowances stood at Rs. 15,000 for the extremely poor category, Rs. 8,500 for the poor category, Rs. 5,000 for the vulnerable category, and Rs. 2,500 for the transitional category.

The allowances were subsequently revised through a gazette notification issued on 15 December 2025. The allowance for the extremely poor category was increased to Rs. 17,500 and the allowance for the poor category to Rs. 10,000. The transitional category allowance was increased to Rs. 5,000 before payments under the category ended in December 2025.

Fernando said that applications received during the first and second phases of the Aswesuma scheme were currently undergoing re-verification, with around 90% of the process already completed.

“We expect to complete this process by the end of September, with 90% of the verification already completed,” he said.

Kotawalagedara, meanwhile, said that the transitional and vulnerable categories had been introduced specifically in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis and had always been intended as temporary measures.

“The transitional and vulnerable categories were included due to the Covid period and the prevailing economic crisis,” he said, adding that only the poor and extremely poor categories would continue going forward.