Budget 2016: Women ministry wants bigger allocation for the needy

The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry hopes for a bigger allocation from the government in the Budget 2016 to implement more programmes, including 'Anjung Kasih'.

Its minister Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim said more hospitals had appealed to set up Anjung Kasih facilities, because besides providing free temporary accommodation for families of patients, it could also help the patients who came from afar and were unable to commute to the hospital regularly for treatment.

"I hope the Anjung Kasih programme would be considered at 14 hospitals nationwide, compared to only seven hospitals at the moment, which provided 385 beds," she told reporters after launching Whistleblower Protection Policy Implementation here, Tuesday.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will be tabling the Budget 2016 on Oct 23 in Parliament.

Rohani said another proposal from the ministry was to increase the launching grant from RM2,700 to RM5,000 for Social Welfare Department beneficiaries, to generate their own income.

She added the ministry also proposed to raise the eligibility limit for incentives to send children to nursery for public servants with a household income of less than RM5,000 to RM10,000 and below.

"The incentive is RM180 a month for each child, but at this point it is less used as the combination of husband and wife incomes is more than RM5,000," she said.

Rohani said the ministry also hoped could raise the eligibility of other programmes for people with a household income of below RM5,000 to RM10,000 and below, such as free mammogram check-ups.

"The ministry also proposed to grant derivative pension to the mother or father of single pensioners, who died during or after service.