Sri Lanka’s Finance Ministry has admitted that thousands of Aswesuma welfare recipients received double payments for April due to what officials described as an “accidental” duplicate upload of payment files.

In a statement issued by the Welfare Benefits Board, authorities said a payment “slip file” had been uploaded twice while processing additional festive allowances approved ahead of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

According to the statement, nearly 1.7 million beneficiary families were included in the payment process, with files grouped into batches of 90,000 before being sent to the Bank of Ceylon for distribution.

Officials said the duplication resulted in double payments being made to some beneficiaries in the “poor” category.

The Ministry said immediate action had been taken to suspend further duplicate payments and instruct banks to reverse the funds to the Welfare Benefits Board’s accounts.

However, authorities admitted that 49,759 beneficiaries had already withdrawn the additional payments from their accounts before the transactions were halted.

The Government said around Rs. 248.7 million would now be recovered from May’s Aswesuma payments.

The issue has sparked criticism and calls for a parliamentary investigation, with the Free Lawyers organisation alleging that nearly Rs. 500 million may have been irregularly paid through the welfare scheme.

The organisation compared the incident to recent controversies involving mistaken state payments, including the transfer of millions of dollars intended for foreign payments to third-party accounts.

In a letter to the Speaker, the group questioned whether the incident was caused by negligence, weak financial controls, or broader failures within the Treasury and Finance Ministry systems.

Welfare Benefits Board Chairman Nimal Kotawelagedara defended the payment process, saying officials had been working under severe time pressure after the Government announced increased festive allowances shortly before the April payments were due.

He said the additional allowances had to be processed outside the normal digital system, leading to one payment list being uploaded twice “by mistake”.

The controversy comes amid growing scrutiny over a series of payment irregularities involving Sri Lankan state institutions in recent weeks.