Bangkok – The national welfare card program will open another round of applications for people with disabilities, the elderly, bedridden patients, and those who were unable to register in last year’s round.
Eleven agencies within the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of the Interior, the Bank of Thailand, Department for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Social Security Office, and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration have signed an agreement to facilitate registrations and log information into an electronic database by the end of this month.
Deputy Permanent Secretary of Finance Narin Kalayanamit revealed Thursday that the program has so far registered an additional 1.1 million people. Around 380,000 of the applications are from people with disabilities, the elderly, and bedridden citizens. The remaining 600,000 are those who had missed the previous round. The number of registrations by the end of the month is expected to reach 1.5 million. Afterwards, the information gathered will be sent to all relevant agencies for vetting, and welfare cards will be handed out to approved applicants by the end of the year.
Narin revealed that from October 2017 to June this year, cardholders have spent over 31 million baht. The program will also continue its policy of occupational training by asking applicants upon registration about the skills they wish to learn.
