Over 64,000 household heads categorised as hardcore poor

Almost 30,000 are living in urban areas, says deputy minister of Women, Family and Community Development.

DEWAN RAKYAT

KUALA LUMPUR: There are 64,894 heads of households categorised as hardcore poor, registered under the e-Kasih system as of Oct 12, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Azizah Mohd Dun said of the total, 28,978 lived in urban areas while 35,916 lived in rural areas.

“Ensuring the wellbeing of the people is a priority in line with the concept of inclusiveness. The government is deeply concerned about the poor and constantly striving to eradicate poverty.

“There are various programmes and assistance implemented in the past, being implemented today and will continue to be implemented by the federal and state governments to ensure the poverty rate continues to drop,” she said.

She was responding to a question from Makin @ Marcus Mojigoh (BN-Putatan) regarding the number of those categorised as hardcore poor in rural and urban areas as well as the number of single mothers and disabled people who have received assistance from the ministry.

Azizah said among the measures introduced by her ministry were the Single Mothers Skill Incubator Programme (I-KIT), and Women Entrepreneurship Incubator Programme (I-KeuNita), now known as the Development of Women Entrepreneurship Initiatives (DeWI).

The programmes are aimed at providing training to the target groups to help them generate income and improve their quality of life.

She said the ministry also provided assistance to the elderly, disabled and bed-ridden patients and until August, some 134,789 elderly people had benefitted from the Old Age Assistance Scheme, which provides an allowance of RM300 per month and involves a total allocation of more than RM360 million.

Azizah also said people with disabilities were given an allowance, while the disabled who were incapable of working were given assistance as were the carers of those who were bed-ridden or chronically ill.

Up to August, 78,221 people with disabilities benefited from the disabled workers allowance with a total allocation of RM240 million, she said.

“A total of 56,413 people benefited from assistance for the disabled who are incapable of working with a total allocation of RM97 million.

“For bed-ridden or chronically ill patients, a total of 24,571 carers benefited from this aid with a total allocation of RM68 million,” she said. -FMT