Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered the registration of low-income people nationwide to enable improved assistance for them in the near future, Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Pitipong Phuengboon Na Ayudhaya said.
The minister said the prime minister assigned the task to the ministries of finance, interior and agriculture. The targets include farmers, vendors and labourers. The database will include their incomes, assets and land.
Mr Pitipong denied that the new register was intended as a basis to tax people. The government needed correct information about them to plan assistance measures that could really reach them.
The registration process was expected to be finished by the end of this fiscal year, so that assistance would be available immediately after the harvest season.
Mr Pitipong also said the agriculture ministry had hired the Thailand Development Research Institute to study the overall debt of farmers, both debt resulting from crop production and from the purchase of assets like vehicles. The study would help the government effectively solve farmers' debt problems, he said.