Senior citizens of Kailash Rural Municipality, a remote local unit in Makwanpur district, have heaved a sigh of relief as the rural municipality has started providing elderly allowance at their doorsteps.

Octogenarian Dil Bahadur Jimba, a resident of Kailash-9, was elated after receiving his lumpsum elderly allowance of four months in his own residence on Monday. He recalled his hardships to reach at Sanima Bank in Kalikatar, centre of the Kailash Rural Municipality, to receive the allowance earlier. It took four hours for 84-year-old Jimwa to reach Kalikatar and as much time to return home after receiving the allowance.

Considering the difficulties faced by senior citizens to receive their monthly allowance of Rs2,000, the rural municipality has started to provide the door-to-door service. The local body started the service from Wards 3, 4 and 9. A team comprising people’s representatives of the respective ward, bank and the local unit reached the area and provided the social security allowance to the senior citizens, single women and physically challenged people.

Tanka Bahadur Moktan, chief of the local unit, said that the team distributed the allowance to 120 people, including 90 senior citizens, 20 single women and 10 disabled people in Ward 9 on Monday. On Sunday, 170 people of Wards 3 and 4 received the allowance from Ghumaune. The social security allowance is being distributed through banking system from Sanima Bank which opened its branch in the local body a year ago.

According to Moktan, the door-to-door service has been started with the aim of making government services accessible to all. “We have started the campaign of providing security allowance at doorsteps with the idea to make receiving government services easier for people,” he added. The rural municipality has completed distributing the allowance in three of the 10 wards. The local body said it would soon reach all the wards for the distribution of allowance. There are 1,688 recipients of the allowance, including senior citizens, single women and disabled people, in Kailash Rural Municipality.