Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Tuesday interact with the beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) in Gujarat through video conferencing. “At 12:30 PM tomorrow, 3rd August, I will interact with beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana in Gujarat. It would be wonderful to hear their views and experiences,” PM Modi posted on Twitter on Monday.
The virtual event will also feature Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani and deputy chief minister Nitinbhai Patel.
A public participation programme is being launched in the state, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), to raise awareness about the Centre’s scheme.
Due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, the Centre announced the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana in March of last year as a food security welfare scheme. The scheme is run by the Union ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution’s department of food and public distribution.
The PMGKAY’s main goal is to provide food grains through the public distribution system to the poorest citizens. Every month, the Centre gives away five kilos of rice or wheat and one kilos of pulses under the scheme.
In July, the Centre informed Parliament that under PMGKAY, nearly 80 crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries received nearly 278 lakh metric tonnes of food grains over a seven-month period from May to November 2021.
“During the year 2021 for the period of 7 months, that is from May to November 2021, about 278 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) foodgrains have been allocated free of cost to approximately 80 Crore NFSA beneficiaries under PMGKAY,” minister of state Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti told the Lok Sabha on July 27.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme, the UN’s food assistance arm, praised PMGKAY in June as a significant step forward in combating hunger by any developing country during the ongoing pandemic.
