Free ration scheme extended for 6 months
New Delhi, March 26
The Centre today extended free ration to poor under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) for another six months till September 2022, with an additional cost of Rs 80,000 crore. This will take the total expenditure on the scheme to Rs 3.40 lakh crore.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by PM Narendra Modi at his residence, said Food and Civil Supplies Minister Piyush Goyal in a Twitter post.
After the meeting, PM Modi tweeted, “The scheme has been extended till September 2022. More than 80 crore people of the country will continue to take advantage of it.”
The extension despite the slowdown of the Covid spread shows the Modi government’s sensitivity towards the poor, Goyal said.
Under the PMGKAY, which is running for the past two years, the government will distribute another 244 lakh tonnes of grain at a cost of Rs 80,000 crore to the exchequer.
In March 2020, the Centre had launched the scheme to benefit over 80 crore people covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) as part of its efforts to reduce the hardships of people during the pandemic. The Centre provides 5 kg of grain per month under this scheme.
The additional grain is over and above the normal quota provided under the NFSA at a highly subsidised rate of Rs 2-3 per kg. The scheme has been extended several times with the recent one till March 2022.
Initially in 2020-21, the scheme was announced only for a period of three months (April-June 2020). Later, the government extended it from July-November 2020 (Phase-II).
With the Covid crisis continuing in 2021-22, the Centre in April 2021, reintroduced the scheme for a period of two months May and June (Phase-III) and later extended it for another five months from July-November (Phase-IV). The scheme was again extended from December, 2021 to March, 2022 (Phase-V).
Under the Phases I to V, the Food Ministry had allocated a total of about 759 lakh tonne of foodgrain to the states/UTs, which is equivalent to about Rs 2.60 lakh crore on food subsidy.
Benefit enhanced
- Under the extended PMGKAY, each beneficiary household will get an additional 5 kg of free ration
- This means every poor family will get nearly double the normal quantity of ration
