The city of Jeonju in southwestern North Jeolla Province is the first local government in the country to provide its vulnerable citizens with basic disaster income to help fight the coronavirus outbreak.

The Jeonju City Council held an extraordinary meeting on Friday and approved an emergency supplementary budget drawn up by the city government worth over 55-point-six billion won.

Over 26 billion won will go towards basic disaster income payments.

The council's budget committee raised the per person cash aid to over 527-thousand won from the 500-thousand won originally proposed by the city.

The stipend will be given to some 50-thousand people who are unemployed or temporary workers in the form of debit cards in April. The money should be spent in the Jeonju area within three months.

The city will separately spend 27 billion won to financially support small businesses hit hard by COVID-19.