Centre Extends 5 Kg Free Foodgrain Scheme Till March 2022

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday, November 24, extended the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) till March 2022. Union Minister Anurag Thakur announced this during a press conference.

"In the last more than 20 months, we have seen that the poor, even the middle class families have suffered, not here but globally as well. One of the ways to help the poor families was to give them foodgrains," Thakur said.

"We still feel as the economy is getting back on track, the figures are looking much better. At the same time, Prime Minister wants to help those poor families who have gone through this COVID-19 pandemic, so that for the next four months, they should be helped and foodgrains should be given to them," the minister added.

This will cost an additional ₹ 53,344 crore to the exchequer, he said, adding that the total cost of PMGKAY would reach about ₹ 2.6 lakh crore, including this extension. The 5 kg foodgrain per person per month is being provided free of cost to more than 80 crore beneficiaries under the PMGKAY.

The scheme was initially launched for three months from April 2020 to provide relief to poor people amid the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the nationwide lockdown. It has been extended several times since then.

While phase-I was operational from April to June 2020, phase-II from July to November 2020, phase-III from May to June 2021,phase-IV from July to November 2021 and the phae-V will be from December to March 2022. According to Times Now, the distribution under PMGKAY-IV is presently ongoing and as per reports available from states and UTs so far, 93.8% of foodgrains have been lifted, and nearly 37.32 LMT, 37.20 LMT, 36.87 LMT, 35.4 LMT and 17.9 LMT foodgrains have been distributed to about 74.64 crore, 74.4 crore, 73.75 crore, 70.8 crore and 35.8 crore beneficiaries respectively.

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