[17] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that an additional 5 kg of food grains would be provided for free of cost to each person in the household those holding an Antyodaya and Priority ration card.
Under PMGKAY, 1121 metric tonnes of food grains were distributed in seven phases from April 2020 to December 2022 at a cost of Rs 3.9 lakh crore.
[18] The Central Government, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), has decided to continue providing free food grains till December 2028.
With consideration to the upcoming festival season in India, Modi announced the extension of PMGKAY up to November 2020, which according to government estimates would benefit 800 million beneficiaries.
The new proposed scheme is devised to cater especially to migrant laborers to help them receive subsidized grain from any "fair price" shops across the country.
[25] Data released after PM Modi's speech from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution revealed that initially in many staates the free grain failed to be distributed to intended recipients due to nationwide lockdown, strict restrictions on movement, corruption among food dealers and village council members.
The Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey blamed a lack of migrant workers for the failure to distribute grains.
The director of Oxfam India, Ranu Bhogal, blamed corruption among food dealers and village council members.
[29] However, the situation improved significantly from the last quarter of 2020, when procurement and distribution reached an all-time high and have remained at that level ever since.
[31][32] To curb leakage and corruption in grain distribution at the ground level, the government implemented Aadhaar linkage to ration cards along with fingerprint and OTP-based authentication during distribution which ensures that only eligible beneficiaries receive the grains, while all duplicate or fraudulent ration cards are deactivated from the system.
[34] As per a study conducted by International Monetary Fund, published on 5 April 2020, found that extreme poverty (less than PPP USD 1.9 per person per day) in India is less than 1 per cent in 2019 and it remained at that level even during the COVID-19 pandemic year 2020.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's food security scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, has been critical in preventing any increase in extreme poverty levels in India during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PMGKAY was critical in preventing any increase in extreme poverty levels in India and the doubling of food entitlements worked substantially in terms of absorbing the COVID-19 induced income shocks on the poor, said the IMF report.Under the PMGKAY, free food grain is provided to those in need.