Government to Provide 3 Million KRW Support to Jeonse Bus Drivers with Income Loss Due to COVID-19 Starting June

National Assembly Approves 2nd Supplementary Budget in Plenary Session

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] The government will provide 3 million KRW per person starting next month to bus drivers whose income has decreased due to COVID-19. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) decided to implement expenditure restructuring on projects expected to be difficult to execute by the end of the year in order to secure funds for this supplementary budget.

On the 30th, MOLIT announced that following the National Assembly's approval of the "2022 2nd Supplementary Budget" the previous day, it will provide the "COVID-19 Response Bus Driver Special Support Fund" to all route bus drivers. This is due to securing 258.9 billion KRW for the "COVID-19 Response Bus Driver Special Support Budget" as the 2022 2nd supplementary budget passed the plenary session. This budget was increased by 10 million KRW compared to the government's original proposal during the supplementary budget review process in the National Assembly. Accordingly, 86,000 private bus drivers, including 35,000 charter bus drivers and 51,300 route bus drivers, will benefit.

MOLIT plans to establish a rapid execution system in cooperation with local governments to enhance the effectiveness of this special support for bus drivers and will announce the application methods, eligibility criteria, and other details early next month.

Additionally, MOLIT explained that 200 million KRW was newly allocated by the National Assembly for research expenses to build a system providing a one-stop integrated reservation service for disabled call taxis. Through this, MOLIT plans to promptly advance research on system construction measures to enable convenient reservations for disabled call taxis nationwide.

In this supplementary budget, MOLIT supported about 1.9 trillion KRW from its budget. Among its projects, 450 billion KRW for road and railway construction projects delayed due to changes in project plans during last year's budget formulation and 1.45 trillion KRW from the Housing and Urban Fund projects, which are expected to be difficult to execute by the end of the year, were targeted.

Among these, the Housing and Urban Fund provided a total of 2.94 trillion KRW as supplementary budget resources, including 1.45 trillion KRW plus 1.49 trillion KRW in surplus funds.

MOLIT plans to recover the 2.94 trillion KRW supplementary budget support from the Housing and Urban Fund after a one-year maturity period with interest and use it for future residential welfare projects.

Furthermore, to share in the difficulties faced by the public due to COVID-19, 6.2 billion KRW in current expenses such as annual leave compensation was also reduced.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.