Ministry provides free food grains to beneficiaries under PMGKAY

Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said that the ministry provided additional food grains @ 5 kg per person every month for free to all the beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) during April-December 2020 and May-March 2021. Further, this Department has allocated additional food-grain of 8 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Package (ANBP), covering all the States and UTs for migrants or stranded migrants, who are neither covered under the State Scheme PDS Cards nor NFSA, @ 5 kg per person per month free of cost for two months from May-June 2020.The State-wise distribution details are placed in Annexure-II. Under PMGKAY-I from April-June 2020, 1 kg pulses per household per month was provided free to 19.4 crore beneficiaries. Under PMGKAY-II from July-November 2020, 1 kg whole chana per household per month was provided free to all the beneficiaries. During the Covid-19 lockdown, chana stocks were allocated for distribution at 1 kg per family per month for free during May-June 2020 to the migrants who were not under NFSA 2013 or were without the ration card within the state or UT. For food grains, including pulses and chana, the overall financial implication is nearly Rs 2.75 lakh crore. The food grains provided under the PMGKAY scheme between April-November 2020 and May 2021 to March 2022 is estimated to be about Rs 2.60 lakh crore. Under the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat (ANB), the overall financial implication of up to Rs 3,109.52 crore was also provided. For all the food grains, a total of Rs 5,140 crore under PMGKAY-I, Rs 6,999.24 crore under PMGKAY-II and Rs 280 crore under ANB had been allocated. Image Source Also read: Experts discuss the importance of Smart and Sustainable Living