In pursuance of the pro-people announcement made by the prime minister in 2021 and successful implementation of additional food security under PM Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana, the union cabinet has approved its extension for a further period of three months, from October to December 2022.

At a time when the world is battling with the effects of Covid and insecurity due to various reasons, India has been successfully maintaining food security for its vulnerable sections while taking necessary steps to keep availability and affordability for the common man, an official release said Wednesday.  

Recognising that people have gone through a difficult period of pandemic, the 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 like Navaratri, Dussehra, Milad-un-nabi, Deepawali, Chhath pooja, Gurunanak dev Jayanti and Christmas, which they can celebrate with great gaiety and community for festivities, the release said.

With a view to ensuring this, the government has approved this extension of PMGKAY for three months, so that they continue to enjoy the benefits of easy availability of food grains without any financial distress.

Under this welfare scheme, 5 kg of food grain per person per month is provided free of cost for all the beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) [Antodaya Anna Yojana & Priority Households] including those covered under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

Financial implication for the Government of India has been about Rs. 3.45 Lakh crore up to Phase VI of PMGKAY. With the additional expenditure of about Rs. 44,762 crore for Phase VII, 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.

So far, PMGKAY has been in operation for 25 months as under:

Phase I and II (8 months) : April ’20 to Nov ’20
Phase-III to V (11 months) : May ’21 to March ’22
Phase-VI (6 months) : April ’22 to Sept ’22

PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), started during difficult time of the 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.