Free ration under PMGKAY extended to September: Centre

New Delhi: The Union government has extended the PMGKAY (Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana), the free foodgrain programme, for another six months to September. Union food minister Piyush Goyal announced the same on Saturday to provide relief to the poor, PTI reported.

The decision was taken by the Union Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Piyush Goyal tweeted that extending the scheme despite the end of the pandemic shows the Modi government's sensitivity towards the poor.

The PMGKAY programme, which was launched in March 2020, after the outbreak of the pandemic, will distribute 1,003 lakh tonnes of food grain, costing the exchequer Rs 3.4 lakh crore.

It was launched to benefit 80 crore beneficiaries who are covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in order to reduce the hardships of the people during the Covid-19 onslaught. Under the scheme, the union government provides 5kg of foodgrains per month for free.

The additional free grain is higher than the regular quota provided under the NFSA at a highly subsidized rate of Rs 2 to 3 per kg. As the pandemic raged high, the scheme was extended until March 2022.

At first, the scheme was only for the three months April, May and June in 2020, the first phase. It was extended later from July to November that year in phase two.

With the COVID crisis continuing in 2021-22, the Centre, in April 2021, had reintroduced the scheme for a period of two months of May and June 2021 (Phase-III) and extended it for another five months from July to November 2021 (Phase-IV).

Later it was reintroduced in April 2021 and extended another five months from July to November. Those were phases four, three and four. It was developed from December to March 2022 for phase five.