Economy
Rs 2.94 Lakh Crore Released Towards Food Subsidy To FCI, State Govts Under PMGKAY And NFSA In FY22: Centre
PDS (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
The Centre on Wednesday (13 April) said that a sum of over Rs 2.94 lakh crore has been released towards food subsidy to Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state governments under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) and National Food Security Act (NFSA) in the financial year 2021-22.
"For procurement operations under MSP (Minimum Support Price) and seamless distribution of foodgrain under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY) and National Food Security Act 2013 (NFSA), during Financial Year 2021-22 Department of Food and Public Distribution released Rs 2,94,718 crore towards food subsidy to Food Corporation of India and state governments under both DCP and non-DCP operations put together against revised Estimates of Rs 2,92,419.11 crore," the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said in a release on Wednesday.
"This release of food subsidy is about 140 per cent of the food subsidy released during 2020-21 and about 267 per cent of the food subsidy released during 2019-20," the ministry added.
The ministry further said that during FY22, it achieved "99.83 per cent of expenditure by incurring Rs 3,04,361 crores against net allocation of Rs 3,04,879 crore".
It should be noted that in a bid to address the challenges posed by COVID-19 pandemic, the Central government had decided to released additional 5 kg per person per month free foodgrain to more than 80 crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries under PMGKAY, over and above their entitlement of foodgrain under NFSA.
This additional allocation has been made in 5 phases so far from April 2020 to March 2022.
"Since inception, a total of 758 lakh metric tonne (LMT) of foodgrain has been allocated under the scheme with financial implication of Rs 2.60 lakh crore," the ministry said.
The government has now extended the PMGKAY scheme till September, 2022, which will involve an additional allocation of 244 LMT of foodgrain with additional financial implication of about Rs 80,851 crore, according to the ministry.
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