Aswesuma welfare payments for the first round of recipients will resume in July 2026, Welfare Benefits Board Chairman Nimal Kotawalagedara announced on Tuesday, once a nationwide beneficiary verification survey is completed.
Kotawalagedara said the Board expects to finish the surveys before July, after which disbursements will restart. The exercise is designed to weed out ineligible recipients and ensure benefits reach households that genuinely qualify under the programme’s targeting criteria.
The Aswesuma programme, which replaced the older Samurdhi scheme, is Sri Lanka’s primary social safety net, supporting hundreds of thousands of low-income families with monthly cash transfers. The April tranche had been distributed through post offices ahead of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year festive season.
The July timeline implies a gap in payments that could hit vulnerable households hard during one of the most difficult cost-of-living periods in recent memory. Families are already contending with elevated gas prices, fuel rationing and broader inflationary pressures linked to the Middle East energy crisis.
The Board warned that legal action will be taken against anyone found to have provided false information during the survey process.
