PRADHAN MANTRI GARIB KALYAN ANNA YOJANA

• Recently, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution revised the PMKGAY (Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana) allocation of rice and wheat for all the 36 states/UTs for the remaining five months — from May to September 2022.
• 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.

It was initially announced for a three-month period (April, May and June 2020), covering 80 crore ration cardholders. Later it was extended till November 2020.

1. Phase-I and Phase-II of this scheme were operational from April to June 2020 and July to November 2020 respectively.
2. Phase-III of the scheme was operational from May to June 2021.
3. Phase-IV of the scheme is currently operational for July-November 2021 months.

The scheme aimed at providing each person who is covered under the NFSA (National Food Security Act 2013) with an additional 5 kg grains (wheat or rice) for free, in addition to the 5 kg of subsidized food grain already provided through the Public Distribution System (PDS).

• The new version of the PMGKAY lacks one of its important components which was there in 2020 PMGKAY i:e free-of-cost 1 kg pulses per month to each household covered under the NFSA.

Significance:

• It is significant in a view of daily wagers and informal sector entrepreneurs who lost their job in the wake of Covid-19 induced Lockdown.
• A key issue is that the beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act are based on the last census (2011). The number of food-insecure people has increased since then and they remain uncovered.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT