A larger number of citizens will benefit from cold-month allowances now that Parliament adopted a bill to modify the conditions for deciding and providing social and cold-month assistance. The goal was to increase the multiplier for the minimum guaranteed monthly income used to determine the cold-month allowance, IPN reports.

The bill provides that the period for taking the decision concerning the provision or non-provision of social assistance or the cold-month allowance was extended to 40 workdays of the registration of the application with all the necessary documents and the personnel of social assistance bodies will this way have more time to process the received applications.

It is estimated that about 220,000 persons will get cold-month allowances in 2023. A sum of 770 million lei was earmarked for paying such allowances.

The bill is to be given a second reading.