Centre Extends Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana For 6 Months Till Sept 2022

The decision to extend the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana was taken during the Union Cabinet meeting.

New Delhi: Soon after concluding the Union Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday extended Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana for 6 months till September 2022. Giving details, Union minister Piyush Goyal said the decision to extend the free foodgrain programme ‘PMGKAY’ for six months was taken to provide relief to poor people of the country. “The extension of the scheme despite the end of the COVID-19 pandemic shows the Modi government’s sensitivity towards poor,” Piyush Goyal said in a tweet.

Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana extended for 6 months, till September 2022. pic.twitter.com/MQdbOCAQln

— ANI (@ANI) March 26, 2022

Under the PMGKAY programme, which is running for the past years, the Centre distributes 1,003 lakh tonnes foodgrain at a cost of Rs 3.4 lakh crore to the exchequer.

So far, the Centre has spent approximately Rs 2.6 trillion and another Rs 80,000 Crore will be spent over the next 6 months till September 2022 taking the total expenditure under PMGKAY to nearly Rs 3.4 trillion.

The Central government had in March 2020 launched the scheme, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), to provide free foodgrains to over 80 crore beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) as part of its efforts to reduce the hardships of people during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Centre provides 5kg of foodgrains per month for free under this scheme. The additional free grains is over and above the normal quota provided under the NFSA at a highly subsidised rate of Rs 2-3 per kg.

In the past years, the scheme has been extended several times with the recent one until March 2022. Initially in 2020-21, the PMGKAY scheme was announced only for a period of three months of April, May and June 2020 (Phase-I). Later, the government extended the scheme from July to November 2020 (Phase-II).