Incheon e-Um Card Cashback to Resume on September 21 After Two-Month Suspension with 77.9 Billion Won Supplementary Budget

The cash-back rebate program for Incheon's local currency, the e-Um card, which was abruptly suspended by the 9th elected Incheon city administration in mid-July due to depleted budgets and other reasons, is set to resume on September 21.

Incheon City announced that it has drawn up its second supplementary budget, which includes funding to restart the Incheon e-Um cash-back program, to ensure that public livelihood issues and essential public services proceed without disruption.

This supplementary budget proposal reflects 77.9 billion won for the Incheon e-Um card cash-back program, and the city plans to resume cash-back payments as soon as the supplementary budget passes the city council next month.

However, the cash-back rate will be set at 10% of the amount spent, with monthly spending limits capped at 1 million won for a ten-day period starting from September 21 around the Chuseok holiday, and 50 million won per month from October through the end of the year.

The scale of this supplementary budget stands at 17.0241 trillion won, an increase of 7.3%, or 1.1551 trillion won, from the established budget of 15.8690 trillion won, which includes the first supplementary budget of this year.

By budget category, new allocations include 12.7 billion won for childbirth support, 1.5 billion won for additional youth housing rent subsidies, 27.9 billion won for public transportation financial support, and 6.6 billion won for the I-Bada Pass support program.

The I-Bada Pass program, which subsidizes ferry fares for Incheon citizens to the level of city bus fares, also includes expanded support for military personnel, former residents, and those with ties to the region. Conversely, adjustments were made to reduce funding for projects that are difficult to execute within the year, are not deemed essential, or have shown sluggish execution.

In particular, the budget for the Songdo International City waterfront development project, a large-scale investment project, was cut by 30 billion won, while the budgets for the 3rd-stage expansion of the Songdo public wastewater treatment facility and the construction of the K-Bio Lab Hub, a core base for Songdo's bio-industrial ecosystem, were reduced by 12.2 billion won and 13 billion won, respectively.

Incheon Mayor Park Chan-dae stated, "This supplementary budget proposal considers both fiscal normalization and the stability of people's livelihoods," adding, "Moving forward, we will transparently explain our financial situation and responsibly formulate and execute the budget."

(Photo provided by Incheon City, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.