ArmInfo. The Armenian government decided to postpone for a week consideration of the issue of increasing the amount of a lump sum for the birth of a second child.
According to the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Mane Tandilyan, according to the submitted draft, it is envisaged to increase the amount of a one-time benefit for the birth of a second child from October 1, 2018. Currently, for the birth of the first and second child, parents receive a one-time benefit of 50 thousand drams for each child, for the third - 1 million drams, for every fourth and subsequent - 1.5 million drams. Now it is proposed to allocate 150 thousand drams of lump-sum allowance for the birth of a second child. To accomplish this task, 375 million drams will be allocated in October-December of this year, starting from 2019 the amount of allocations will reach 1.5 billion drams. The allocations in the current year, the minister continued, will be carried out at the expense of the saved funds, which were budgeted, but not paid because of a decline in the birth rate. If in 2016 40 thousand children were born in Armenia, then a year later this figure decreased by three thousand. This year, as expected, the number of newborns will decrease by another one thousand. The proposed decision is aimed at solving demographic problems.
During the meeting a proposal was made to double the amount of lump-sum allowance for ] each of twins or triplets, the proposal was approved and on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's initiative the consideration of the issue was postponed for a week in order to make relevant amendments in the draft.