Ministry plans to increase income ceiling for families eligible for child subsidies

Somkid Somsri, director general of the ministry's Children and Youths Department said that if the proposal is approved by the Cabinet, the annual income ceiling of eligible families would be raised form Bt36,000 to Bt100,000 in line of criteria of people eligible for welfare state ID cards.
The number of children eligible for the monthly subsidy of Bt600 would be increased from 681,629 now to about 1.44 million.
Currently, poor parents are given the subsidies for newborn child until the age of three. The ministry will also seek to increase the age for subsidies to six years, Somkid said.
Somkid said a non-governmental organisation campaigning for child welfare policies has called on the government to make subsidies universal and to expand the subsidy period to six years.
Somkid said if the subsidies are made universal, the government would have to pay subsidies to 4.318 million children and the administration may not have enough budget.