Acting Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe states that 300,000 additional families were found to be qualified for the ‘Aswesuma’ welfare benefits programme, after reviewing 640,000 appeals and objections thus far regarding the beneficiary lists.Joining a discussion held with the Welfare Benefits Board at the Finance Ministry today (18), Semasinghe said that the total number of recipients of the ‘Aswesuma’ programme now exceeds 1.7 million families.Meanwhile, a total 5,209 families which were receiving the welfare benefits thus far have been disqualified to receive the relevant benefits as a result of the considered appeals and objections while the welfare benefit level of 2,567 other families have been downgraded.The Acting Finance Minister, who pointed out that more than 1.1 million appeals and objections have been received in total, asserted that the consideration of all those appeals and objections will be completed as soon as possible.