Union Government extends PMGKAY till December 2022

Tags: Economy/Finance Government Schemes

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 September 2022 has extended the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY-Phase VII) for a further period of 3 months, October to December 2022. The phase VI of the scheme was to end on 30 September 2022.

This will cover nearly 80 crore beneficiaries across India.

The government has extended the scheme keeping in mind the coming festival season so that there is no additional burden on the poor.

PMGKY is the world's largest food security programme which was launched in April 2020 to provide relief to the poor and migrant population suffering due to the corona -19 induced lockdown and the consequent hardship faced by them.

Features of the PMGKAY 

• PMGKAY is a part of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) to help the poor fight the battle against Covid-19.
• Its nodal Ministry is the Ministry of Finance.
• Under this scheme, the government provides additional free of cost 5 kg per person per month food-grains (rice/wheat) to around 80 crore beneficiaries of National Food Security Act (NFSA) including the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) beneficiaries. 
• The PMGKAY has now been linked with One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) plan where migrant workers can get the benefit of the scheme through any ration shops in India.

Financial burden on the central government 

• The scheme is fully funded by the government of India 
• The government of India has so far spent Rs 3.45 lakh Crore upto Phase-VI of PMGKAY. With the additional expenditure of about Rs. 44,762 Crore for Phase-VII of this scheme, the overall expenditure of PMGKAY will be about Rs. 3.91 lakh crore for all the phases.
• The total outgo in terms of food grains for PMGKAY Phase VII is likely to be about 122 Lakh metric tonnes. The aggregate allocation of food grain for phases I- VII is about 1121 lakh metric tonnes.

Phases of the PMGKAY Scheme 

Phase 1 from April to June 2020

Phase II from July to November 2020

Phase III from December 2020 to May 2021 to June 2021

Phase IV from July 2021 to November 2021

Phase V from December 2021 to March 2021 

Phase VI from April 2022 to September 2022 

Phase VII from October 2022 to December 2022

Important Government Scheme

National Food Security Act (NFSA)

The Public distribution system in India is covered under the National Food Security Act 2013.  It was implemented on 10 September 2013.

• It covers all the State and Union Territories in India.
• The scheme is administered by the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs Food and Public Distribution.
• The Act provides for coverage of upto 75% of the rural population and upto 50% of the urban population for receiving subsidized foodgrains under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), thus covering about two-thirds of the population.
• Food Grains are provided to beneficiaries in two categories, Antodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Household (PHH).
• The Antodaya Anna Yojana beneficiaries get 35 kg of foodgrains per month and the Priority Household gets 5kg per person per month.
• The beneficiary gets rice/wheat or coarse cereals at a highly subsidized price.