PMGKAY-Phase VII: The Union Cabinet recently approved the extension for the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY-Phase VII) for a further period of 3 months i.e. October to December 2022.

The decision to extend this scheme which was scheduled to end on September 30 comes ahead of the festive season.

Key Points:

• Under the seventh phase of this scheme,122 lakh metric tonnes of food grains will be distributed from October to December 2022.
• The grain allotment for the seventh phase is around 1.121 lakh metric tonnes (LMT).
• A subsidy of Rs. 44,762 crore would be used for this phase.
• In the sixth phase of the PM-GKAY, the government has spent around Rs 3.45 Lakh crore.
• With the additional expenditure of about Rs. 44,762 Crore for Phase-VII of this scheme, the overall expenditure of PMGKAY will be about Rs. 3.91 lakh crore for all the phases.

Extension of this scheme:

Initially, the scheme was planned for a period of 3 months but since then, it has been extended several times.

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

• Phase-I and Phase-II of this scheme was operational from April to June, 2020 and July to November, 2020 respectively.
• Phase-III of the scheme was operational from May to June, 2021.
• Phase-IV of the scheme was operational for July-November, 2021
• Phase-V of this scheme was again extended from December 2021 to March 2022.
• Phase-VI of this scheme was then extended from April’22 to Sept.’22

The total food grain allowance for stages I-VII is approximately 1121 LMT.

About PM-GKAY:

• The PM-GKAY has been under implementation since April 2020, as the largest food security program in the world.
• This scheme is a part of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) and was originally introduced in the first lockdown during the initial onset of the COVID pandemic providing free food grains to the affected population.
• Under this scheme, the Government had announced the distribution of additional free-of-cost foodgrains to about 80 Crore National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA).
• Under this welfare scheme, 5 kg of food grain per person per month is provided free of cost for all the beneficiaries.
• It covers people belonging to Below Poverty Line – Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Households (PHH) categories including those covered under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
• It also covers other vulnerable people like widows, elderly, terminally ill, landless agricultural labourers, primitive tribe households, informal sector workers etc. 
• More than 81.35 crore people are benefiting from this scheme.
• Wheat has been allocated for 6 states and union territories and rice has been provided for the rest
• Its nodal Ministry is the Ministry of Finance.