The Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India has begun to implement the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) for a period of 2 months-- May and June-- so that the poor and vulnerable beneficiaries under National Food Security Act (NFSA) do not suffer on account of non-availability of foodgrains during the resurgence of COVID-19 in the country.
Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in a release said that the Food Corporation of India has already positioned sufficient food grains in all States/ UTs for successful implementation of the scheme and started supplying food grains to States/UTs governments.
"Till May 3, 28 States/ UTs have started lifting from FCI depots and 5.88 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) food grains have been supplied for further distribution to beneficiaries. Lakshadweep has completely lifted May -June allocation whereas Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have already lifted 100 per cent of May allocation," the Ministry said.
"The rest of the States/ UTs (Punjab, Chandigarh, Goa, MP, Manipur, Nagaland, Odisha and Puducherry) have also been sensitized to immediately start the lifting under the said scheme and the same is likely to be accelerated in coming days," it added.
The Ministry advised the states and UTs to encourage migrant NFSA beneficiaries for using the facility of portability under the 'One Nation One Ration Card' plan.
The Ministry said that the Centre will bear the entire cost of implementation of PMGKAY (May-June 2021) scheme, without any sharing by states and UTs.
"Under this special scheme, about 80 Crore NFSA beneficiaries covered under both categories of NFSA, namely Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Households (PHH), are being provided with an additional quota of free-of-cost foodgrains (Rice/Wheat) at a scale of 5 Kg per person per month, over and above their regular monthly entitlements," the Ministry added.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor