In a bid to “remove the financial burden of the poor beneficiaries and to ensure nationwide uniformity”, the Government of India announced that it extended the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY)—a one-year plan from January 1, 2023—to five more years with effect from January 1, 2024. As of now, it effectively extended the PMGAY to four more years, considering January 2025 is just a week away.
According to the Department of Food and Public Distribution, the allocation of food grains for free under the PMGKAY was done in addition to the regular allocation in view of the impact of COVID. Under the PMGKAY phases, one to four that extended to 28 months, around 1119LMT of food grains were allocated, amounting to around Rs 3.91 lakh crore.
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Beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), which included households and people covered in the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) programme and the Priority Household (PHH) categorisation, come under the PMGKAY. Prior to the free-of-cost grain distribution, food grains were distributed at subsidised rates of Rs 3 per kg for rice, Rs 2 per kg for wheat, and Rs 1 per kg for coarse grains.
“Under the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC), which is a successful initiative of portability of ration card, any beneficiary can take delivery of food grains from any FPS at uniform NFSA entitlement and price across the country,” read the official statement from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.
Currently, the ministry statistics puts beneficiaries at 80.67 crore people, with the intended coverage to be 81.35 crore persons. For fiscal 2024-2025, the total scheme allocation under NFSA alone is 603.8 lakh tonnes, with rice alone making up 397.28 lakh tonnes.
According to the ministry, more than 99.8 per cent of Aadhaar seeding of ration cards has been achieved, amounting to at least one member per family.
The union government’s One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) plan has delivered more than 315.8 LMT of food grains—counting both inter-state and intra-state transactions—since its inception in August 2019.