Agriculture, Wildlife and Wildlife Conservation Minister Mahinda Amaraweera yesterday directed the Agriculture Insurance Board Chairman to provide farmers’ pensions from a Bank or a Post Office at the discretion of the farming community.
The Minister made these remarks after representatives of the farmers’ organisations requested that steps be taken to ensure that the farmers' pension is paid by banks, not by post offices.
The monthly Farmers' Pension paid by the Agriculture Ministry to the farming community has so far been paid by Post Offices islandwide.
This is because that it receives a small interest rate from the bank as well as a refund if the salary is not received from the post office within six days. They also said that many farmers will not be able to receive their pensions if they had to stay in a hospital for two weeks for treatment because they were old. But the other farmers’ representatives said that such a situation does not arise when obtaining from banks.
They also demanded that e-cards be issued by post offices as most of the farmers are villagers and cannot use cards.
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