The Union government’s scheme to provide 5 kg of free foodgrains per month to 81 crore Indians will be extended for another five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday. Addressing a poll rally in poll-bound Chhattisgarh’s Durg district, Mr. Modi said that the free ration scheme, slated to end this December, would get an extension.
The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana was introduced in 2020 as a pandemic relief measure, providing 5 kg of free food grains per beneficiary per month in addition to the 5 kg of subsidised food grain they were entitled to under the National Food Security Act. In December 2022, as PMGKAY came to an end after multiple extensions, the Union Cabinet decided to make NFSA rations free for one year. That will now be extended further, the PM announced.
“Today, I want to tell the poor brothers and sisters of the country from the land of Durg that I have decided that the BJP government will now extend the scheme of providing free ration to 80 crore poor people of the country for the next five years,” he said.
