Colombo, May 7 (Daily Mirror) – The Welfare Benefits Board (WBB) has confirmed that nearly 50,000 Aswesuma beneficiaries received duplicate payments due to a technical error during the distribution of a special New Year relief allowance, with authorities now moving to recover Rs. 248.8 million through deductions from May payments.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Board said the error occurred after a payment file was mistakenly uploaded twice to the Bank of Ceylon while manually processing relief payments for around 1.7 million beneficiary families outside the Integrated Welfare Benefit Information System (IWMS).It said that on May 7, 2026, the Board said it had taken steps to distribute the regular April Aswesuma allowance before the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, with payments successfully completed by April 10.

The WBB stated that, in addition to the monthly allowance, the government approved a special New Year relief payment following an announcement made by the President in Parliament on April 8, 2026. The relief package was introduced to ease the economic difficulties caused by the Middle East conflict and included Rs. 7,500 for families classified as “extremely poor”, Rs. 5,000 for “poor” families, and Rs. 2,500 for those in the “vulnerable” category.According to the Board, the Integrated Welfare Benefit Information System (IWMS) is currently incapable of processing two separate payments within the same month. As a result, the IT and Finance divisions manually prepared payment files for nearly 1.7 million beneficiary families outside the standard system to ensure the relief funds were received before the festive season.

During the manual process, a technical error occurred when a single “Slip File” was mistakenly uploaded twice to the Bank of Ceylon, resulting in duplicate payments being made to 49,759 beneficiaries in the “poor” category.The WBB said immediate action was taken to freeze the duplicate payment files and recover the funds. However, the affected beneficiaries had already withdrawn the additional amounts. Consequently, a total sum of Rs. 248.8 million will be recovered through deductions from the beneficiaries’ May 2026 Aswesuma allowance.Welfare Benefits Board Chairman Nimal Kotawalagedara said that the prompt action taken by the Board ensured there was no financial loss or irregularity affecting the government.

The Board further urged the public and media not to be misled by false reports surrounding the incident, emphasizing that the error occurred while implementing emergency measures to provide timely financial relief to vulnerable families.