"DIRECTOR-General of the Ministry of the Office of the State Counsellor U Zaw Htay met the internal and external media in accord with the social distancing procedures at the Press Hall of the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw on 19 June, and explained the current situation. At the press conference, the DG said first that he would explain the aid programme for the grassroots with no regular income. For the first time five kinds of basic food items worth K50 billion were distributed to four million households in the whole country during the period from 10 to 19 April before and during the Thingyan holidays. The distribution programme began in regions and states on 10 April and completed in the whole country on 19 April. A review of the programme shows that Magway Region and Kayah State were the quickest in distributing the five items of basic food; that the two had fully completed the programme within four days; and that the slowest were Chin State and Sagaing Region which took 10 days to complete the programme. The review also indicates that although the area of Kayah was small, that of the Magway Region is large. The whole process from the collection of the list to distribution in Magway Region was reassessed. Chin State has places where transport is poor, so, there are difficulties in transporting food. So officials made a review of the programme, and sought better means for the next programme, he said. The first point the review has indicated is that there might be families who were not included in the list for certain reasons because of the time limit in the collection process; and the second point is that there were returnees from neighbouring countries who could be missed out. So, a second programme was arranged to provide food items to the families who were missed out for certain reasons. According to the count, the number of missedout families is 1.4 million, and an order has already been made to directly hand over K15,000 per family, the DG explained..."