The Centre on Tuesday claimed that over 42 crore poor people have received financial assistance of over ₹68,000 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKY).

Announced in March, the ₹1.70-lakh crore package intends to benefit the masses affected during the pandemic by providing free food grains and cash payment to women and poor senior citizens and farmers.

The Ministry tracked the performance of various components of the package. Accordingly, it reported ₹17,891 crore front loaded towards payment of the first instalment of PM-KISAN to 8.94 crore beneficiaries. Over 20.6 crore women got a total of nearly ₹31,000 crore in three instalments through their Jan Dhan Account. Over ₹2,800 crore was disbursed to about 2.81 crore old age persons, widows and disabled persons in two installments. 1.82 crore building & construction workers received financial support amounting to nearly ₹5,000 crore.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana, 37.52 lakh tonnes of food grains was distributed to 75.04 crore beneficiaries in April. Similarly, 37.46 lakh tonnes was distributed to 74.92 crore beneficiaries in May and 36.62 lakh tonnes was distributed to 73.24 crore beneficiaries in June. The scheme was further extended for 5 months till November. Since then, 98.31 lakh tonnes foodgrains have been lifted by States /UTs so far. In July, 36.09 lakh tonnes food grains was distributed to 72.18 crore beneficiaries; in August, 30.22 lakh tonnes was distributed to 60.44 crore beneficiaries, and in September (till 7th), 1.92 lakh tonnes was distributed to 3.84 crore beneficiaries

The Government announced supply of free foodgrains and chana to migrants for 2 months. About 2.8 crore migrants benefited from the supply. During the distribution period up to August, 2.67 lakh tonnes of foodgrains was distributed to 5.32 crore migrants. This works out to an average of about 2.66 crore beneficiaries per month, which is nearly 95 per cent of the estimated number of migrants. Similarly, under Atmanirbhar Bharat, total quantity of chana distributed was 16,417 tonnes to 1.64 crore migrant households, which is 82 lakh households on an average per month.

Total 8.52 crore Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) cylinders have been booked and delivered for April and May under the scheme so far. 3.27 crore PMUY free cylinders delivered to beneficiaries for June, 1.05 crore for July, 0.89 crore for August, and 0.15 crore for September.

Over 36 lakh members of EPFO have taken benefit of online withdrawal of non-refundable advance from EPFO account amounting to ₹9,543 crore. Increased rate under the rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGA) has been notified from April 1. During the current fiscal, 195.21 crore person’s man-days of work have been generated. Further, ₹59,618 crore ws released to States to liquidate pending dues of both wage and material.

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