Cabinet extends Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana till September 2022

Union Cabinet today extended the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana by another six months till September 2022. Announcing this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that more than 80 crore people of the country will be able to take advantage of the scheme like before. He said, the strength of India lies in the power of every citizen of the country. The Prime Minister said, to further strengthen this power, the government has extended the scheme. https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1507713764241690631?t=FtPqwaadRMHMqgDG1fLINg&s=19 The Phase-5 of PM-GKAY scheme was to end this month. It may be recalled that the PM-GKAY has been under implementation since April 2020, as the largest food security program in the world. The Government has spent approximately 2.60 Lakh Crore rupees so far and another 80 thousand Crore rupees will be spent over the next 6 months till September 2022 taking the total expenditure under PM-GKAY to nearly 3.40 Lakh Crore rupees. This will cover nearly 80 crore beneficiaries across India and like before would be fully funded by the Government of India. AIR correspondent reports that under the scheme, the Centre is providing five-kilogram food grains per person per month free of cost to all beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act. Today is the second anniversary of announcemnt of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. In the wake of economic disruptions caused by the unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, the Government on this day in March 2020 had announced the distribution of additional free-of-cost foodgrains to about 80 Crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries at the scale of 5 Kg per person per month under the scheme. It is over and above the regular monthly entitlements of their ration cards, so that the poor, needy and the vulnerable households or beneficiaries do not suffer on account of non-availability of adequate foodgrains during the times of economic crisis. Keeping in view the continuous need to support the food-security of poor and the needy beneficiaries, the Government had extended the distribution of free-foodgrains from time to time and now the scheme has been extended till September this year. Photo-Social Media