NFSA
- ECONOMY
News:
81 crore people to get
free food grains for one year
What's
in the news?
●
The Union Cabinet decided to provide free foodgrains to all 81 crore
beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) for one year.
Key
takeaways:
●
A decision was taken to extend the
benefits of the Antyodaya Ann Yojana, PM-GKAY and the NFSA to more people by merging them.
●
The PM-GKAY, launched during the lockdown
in April 2020, was scheduled to end on December 31, 2022.
●
The government has taken a decision to
provide free food grains for 81.35 crore people who are covered under the NFSA.
●
The beneficiary families which used to pay
₹1 for coarse cereals, ₹2 for wheat and ₹3 for rice per kg will now get 35kg of
foodgrains free for the next one year and others will get 5kg for free in a
month till December 2023.
●
The
Centre has estimated an additional amount of ₹2 lakh crore for the scheme.
PM-GKAY:
●
The PM-GKAY is a scheme under which the
government provides free food grains of 5 kg per person per month to eligible
beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013. This is over and
above their monthly entitlement under the NFSA.
●
The scheme was started as one of the
components of the government’s Rs 1.7 lakh crore Covid relief package.
●
It is estimated that the government has
spent around Rs 3.4 lakh crore on the implementation of all six phases of the
PM-GKAY.
What
are NFSA beneficiaries entitled to?
●
There are two categories of beneficiary
households under the NFSA such as the Antyodaya
Anna Yojana (AAY) households, and the Priority Households (PHs).
●
Each AAY household is entitled to 35 kg of
foodgrains every month irrespective of the number of members in the household.
●
PHs are entitled to receive food grains
according to the number of family members. Each member of a PH is entitled to
receive 5 kg of foodgrains every month under the NFSA. So, the bigger a PH
family, the greater is the quantity of foodgrains it gets.
At
what rate are foodgrains provided under the NFSA?
●
NFSA beneficiaries are entitled to receive
foodgrains at highly subsidised rates. Under the food law, rice is provided at
Rs 3 per kg, wheat at Rs 2 per kg, and coarse grains at Re 1 per kg till now.
●
Now, all the food grains which was
received at a marginal price a two years will now be supplied free, as the
centre has merged the PM-GKAY with the NFSA scheme.
How
many persons are covered under the NFSA?
●
The NFSA, enacted by the UPA government in
2013, aims at ensuring “access to
adequate quantities of quality food at affordable prices” to 50 percent of the
urban and 75 percent of the rural population of the country.
●
The overall national coverage of the NFSA
is about 67.5 percent.
●
Section 9 of the NFSA
states that the number of persons to be covered in rural and urban areas of a
state shall be calculated on the basis of population estimates as per the
Census of which the relevant figures have been published.
●
The latest published Census figures are
from 2011, and based on that about 81.35 crore people can be covered by the
NFSA.
How
is the PM-GKAY different from the NFSA?
●
The NFSA is a right-based scheme under a law of Parliament, while the PM-GKAY is
a scheme announced by the executive as a top-up to the entitlements of
beneficiaries covered under the NFSA.
●
So, only those people who were already
getting subsidized food grains can get free food grains under the PM-GKAY.
●
The PM-GKAY provides additional benefits
to NFSA beneficiaries, but does not cover additional beneficiaries beyond the
accepted limit of 81.35 crore persons under the NFSA.
What
happens now?
●
After the announcement of merging the
provisions of PM-GKAY with the mandate of NFSA, the beneficiaries will get
their free food grains as a right-based scheme.