Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar on Thursday said that the ambitious scheme of the One Nation-One Ration Card across the country has brought a lot of relief to the poor.
Through Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana, the Central Government has provided free food grains to the poor, worth Rs 3.90 lakh crore. The government has made a record purchase of Rs 2.75 lakh crore on MSP in 2021-22, he told reporters.
Referring to the achievements related to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Agriculture, Tomar said that the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana launched to ameliorate the hardships faced by the poor due to economic disruption caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic and to minimise its impact on food security, the government had announced in March 2020 the distribution of additional free-of-cost foodgrains to about 80 crore National Food Security Act (NFSA), Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) & Priority Households (PHH) beneficiaries at the scale of 5 Kg per person per month under the PM Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PM-GKAY), under which 1118 lakh tonnes foodgrains have been allocated to states/UTs so far, with an expenditure of over Rs.3.90 lakh crore. The 7th Phase (October-December, 2022) of PMGKAY is ongoing in the states.
Giving details about the progress of One Nation-One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme, he said that starting with portability among 4 states in August 2019, till now the scheme has been rolled out in all 36 states/UTs, which includes about 80 crore NFSA beneficiaries i.e., about 100 per cent of the country's NFSA population.
More than 99.5 per cent ration cards are linked with Aadhaar (at least one member of the household). 99.8 per cent (5.33 lakh out of 5.34 lakh) Fair Price Shops are being automated with the use of electronic point-of-sale devices for transparent, assuring distribution of subsidized food grains to the beneficiaries, he said.
The Union Minister informed that 339.88 lakh tonnes paddy (227.82 lakh tonnes in case of rice) has been procured at MSP during Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2022-23 up to 4th December 2022 at a cost of Rs. 70,000 crore, benefitting 30 lakh farmers.
Tomar said that the Indian sugar industry is an important agro-based industry, involving 5 crore sugarcane farmers. Today the annual production of the Indian sugar industry is about Rs 1,40,000 crore, the Minister said.