Opposition and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa told Parliament that the poor and elderly helplessly fall to their death in queues to get their membership of the Aswesuma government welfare scheme that had gone awry because the government overlooked obtaining five main public sector officials in each Grama Niladhari Division.

Making a special statement to the House on Tuesday, Premadasa said that the government put in place for implementation a group of persons who have no experience in rural poverty overlooking the input from Grama Niladhari, Samurdhi Development Officer, Agriculture Research Officer, Economic Development Officer and Family Health officer.

He said that Aswesuma could be a programme for the betterment of the poor, but its implementation is a complete failure. Selection of eligible families should be made at grassroots level, taking each Grama Niladhari division as a unit. The Aswesuma is being put into practice without conducting a proper research which should have included the input of Grama Niladhari, Samurdhi Development Officer, Agriculture Research Officer, Economic Development Officer and Family Health officer. How could such a programme be successful at implementation? This has thrown the poor into the fire from the frying pan. The beneficiaries have not been selected scientifically. It could have been scientifically correct to select them on account of their monthly electricity consumption. The way adopted by the government is beyond the reason and as per that method, many among the seven million poor are likely to be overlooked, he said.

He asked the government to explain to this House the method it is planning to implement a national welfare scheme of the nature of the Aswesuma programme without data. There is scientifically acknowledged data by many think tanks, including a report from the LIRNEasia that identifies that only 1.1 million out of two million people living below the poverty line, have been identified to be entitled for the Aswesuma welfare scheme.