New Delhi: The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the extension for the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana Phase VII, providing free good grains at 5 kg per person per month to the beneficiaries, for a further period of 3 months- October 2022 to December 2022.
Recognising that people have gone through a difficult period of pandemic, government has decided to extend PMGKAY for a period of three months so that poor and vulnerable sections of society are supported for the forthcoming major festivals, a Cabinet statement stated.
With the above decision, the government feels that people will be able to enjoy the benefits of easy availability of food grains without any financial distress.
Under this welfare scheme, five kg of food grain per person per month is provided free of cost for all the beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act.
Financial implication for the Government of India has been about Rs 3.45 Lakh Crore upto Phase-VI of the scheme, the Cabinet statement said.
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 LMT. The aggregate allocation of food grain for phases I- VII is about 1121 LMT.
PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), started during difficult time of Covid-19 crisis, has provided food security to the poor, needy and the vulnerable households/ beneficiaries so that they do not suffer on account of non-availability of adequate food grains.
Effectively, it has doubled the quantity of monthly food grains entitlements being normally delivered to beneficiaries. Going by the experience of earlier phases, the performance of PMGKAY-VII is expected to be on the same high level as achieved before, the statement added.
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