{"id":8835,"date":"2020-07-04T18:32:53","date_gmt":"2020-07-04T13:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=8835"},"modified":"2020-07-04T18:32:53","modified_gmt":"2020-07-04T13:02:53","slug":"pradhan-mantri-garib-kalyan-anna-yojana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/pradhan-mantri-garib-kalyan-anna-yojana\/","title":{"rendered":"Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relevance: Prelims\/Mains: Mains level: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes<\/span><\/h3>\n

Context:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Centre<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rice and wheat stocks in government granaries stood at 73.85 million tonnes (mt) as on April 1, 3.5 times the normative operational-cum-strategic reserve requirement for this date.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Two months later, with the procurement of the new wheat crop, these inventories rose further to an all-time-high of over 97 mt.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Against this background, and on top of the widespread distress unleashed by the COVID-19, there is a strong moral as well as economic case for offloading the excess grain lying with the Food Corporation of India.<\/p>\n

Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Infographics:<\/p>\n

\u2022 That\u2019s what is being done through the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Under the scheme, over 80 crore people were being provided 5 kg of free grain per month during April-June.<\/p>\n

\u2022 It has now been extended for another five months till November. In all, it would amount to some 32 mt being given free of cost.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Considering that this grain is going largely to poor or low-income households \u2014 and they are also the worst-affected by the current economic dislocations \u2014 the moral argument is self-evident.<\/p>\n

Economic Costs:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022 As regards economics, it is true that the FCI incurs an average cost of Rs 37.27 on procuring, bagging, transporting, handling, storing and distributing every kg of rice, and Rs 26.84 for wheat.<\/p>\n

\u2022 To the extent any grain is issued free of cost, there is an obvious economic loss.<\/p>\n

\u2022 But these \u201ceconomic cost\u201d calculations do not factor in the buffer \u201ccarrying cost\u201d, which is basically the interest and storage charges payable on the excess stocks held by the FCI.
\n\u2022 This carrying cost is estimated at Rs 5.40 per kg during 2020-21.<\/p>\n

\u2022 On 32 mt, it will work out to Rs 17,280 crore. The more the excess grain that is offloaded, the more will be the savings on this count.<\/p>\n

\u2022 From the FCI\u2019s and the government\u2019s subsidy standpoint, the issue price of grain should ideally be as close as possible to the economic cost.<\/p>\n

\u2022 But that\u2019s impossible, given the sheer quantum of excess stocks.<\/p>\n

\u2022 PMGKAY, if anything, has provided an avenue for liquidation of this surplus rice and wheat.<\/p>\n

Maintaining optimum level:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022 There is no doubt that the FCI\u2019s grain mountain has been the single most important reason for no significant incidence of starvation or food riots during the ongoing COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u2022 But that does not still justify the magnitude of procurement \u2014 39 mt of wheat and 50 mt-plus of rice from the 2019-20 crop \u2014 being undertaken by government agencies.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The FCI\u2019s problem of plenty will, indeed, remain even if the PMGKAY is extended beyond November.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The existing regime of open-ended minimum support price-based procurement for paddy and wheat is financially and environmentally unsustainable.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The government should maintain sufficient stocks of all essential foodstuffs \u2014 including pulses, edible oil, sugar, and milk powder \u2014 to deal with contingencies.<\/p>\n

\u2022 But that doesn\u2019t require even 60 mt in FCI godowns.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022 Extension of PMGKAY is welcome amid continuing economic distress. But FCI\u2019s problem of plenty remains.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For more such notes, Articles, News & Views Join our Telegram Channel.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Click the link below to see the details about the UPSC \u2013Civils courses offered by Triumph IAS.<\/strong> <\/span>https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relevance: Prelims\/Mains: Mains level: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-8835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8836,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8835\/revisions\/8836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}