Experts hope to increase the cost of national social assistance program in this year's budget

BY A STAFF REPORTER: The National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), which includes old age allowance, widow pension, pension for the disabled, national family benefit scheme and Annapurna programme, which aims to provide social assistance benefits to poor families. However, the government has not revised the amount of assistance since the programme was launched in 1995. According to Javed Alam Khan, an expert on social sector programmes and budget responses at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), "There should be some hope from this budget in terms of increasing all allocations and unit costs under the pension scheme. '