"welfare cards"

A two-step economic stimulus will be announced this month to help all groups, the finance minister said on Monday (August 5).

Some bus-ticket agents in at least two provinces can now accept payment by government-issued welfare cards.

Underprivileged ethnic Karen people in a village on the Myanmar border received welfare cards on Tuesday under the government’s Thai Niyom Yangyuen (Sustainable Thainess) scheme.

IN A BID to garner popularity ahead of the election scheduled for February, the government has finalised plans to give more than 11 million low-income people free Internet SIM cards and other state subsidies that will together cost taxpayers billions of baht.

Holders of state welfare smartcards will be allowed to use them to pay for subway fares starting late next month.

The government on Wednesday terminated the universal free bus and train services and replaced them with the use of state welfare cards for the poor to buy tickets.

THE Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) will install e-ticket readers on 200 buses and use a smartphone system on hundreds of other buses to serve holders of electronic welfare cards next month, a BMTA deputy director said yesterday.

More than 10 million registered low-income persons nationwide will get welfare cards this month while another 1.3 million residents of Bangkok and seven other nearby provinces will get cards imbedded with chips to use public buses and trains free of charge starting next month.

The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) will install e-ticket readers on 200 buses and use a smartphone system on hundreds of other buses to serve holders of electronic welfare cards next month, a BMTA deputy director said on Wednesday.

ACTIVISTS campaigning for the rights of the underprivileged have expressed concerns about the government’s launch of welfare cards.