PM-GKAY - GOVERNMENT SCHEME
News: Weighing in on PMGKAY, the free grains scheme
What's
in the news?
● The extension of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), a scheme to distribute free foodgrains to the poor, for another three months, comes as a surprise for many reasons.
Key
Debates:
●
In the months prior to the latest extension
made in late September 2022, there was much debate on the relevance of
freebies.
●
Reports in June shows that the Expenditure
Department at the Centre did not favour it, citing a funds crunch. It also held
the view that such a scheme was no longer needed “in non-pandemic times”.
● This has to be viewed in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, raging since February 2022, and its adverse impact on the world’s food and energy sectors.
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.
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.