State gets 46,504 MT PKGKAY rice for five months
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, July 05 2021: Government of India has allocated 46,504 metric tonnes of rice to Manipur under PMG-KAY scheme for distribution among the NFSA beneficiaries of the state from July to November, 2021.Each beneficiary of NFSA is entitled to get 5kg of rice free of cost every month from July to November under PMGKAY scheme and the rice allocated to the state costs Rs 139,512,000 at the rate of Rs 300 per quintal, informed FCI Imphal deputy general manager Gongreipou Kamei during a press conference held at FCI regional office located at Old Assembly complex, Imphal.

According to Gongreipou, Government of India provided 5kg rice to each NFSA beneficiary free of cost from April to June, 2020 under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna (PMGKAY) to mitigate suffering they faced during COVID-19 pandemic as all economic activities were put on hold.

The same scheme was extended from July to November, 2020.To implement the scheme in Manipur, FCI provided 98,526 metric tonnes of rice and the scheme would benefit 2.01 lakh AAY beneficiaries of the state and 22.66 lakh Priority Household (PHH) beneficiaries.

In view of the present pandemic situation, Government of India decided to extend the scheme till May to June, 2021 and rice allocated for the state for the two months was 18,602 metric tonnes in total.

Manipur government lifted all the allocated rice on June 10 benefiting 18,60,159 beneficiaries including 1,76,699 AAY beneficiaries and 16,83,460 PHH beneficiaries.

The same scheme has been extended from July to November, 2021 now and 46,504 metric tonnes of rice for the state for these five months have been allocated and it amounts to Rs 139,512,000 at the rate of Rs 300 per quintal, he said.

Gongreipou Kamei further said that food subsidy, intra-state transport and dealers' margin/additional dealers' margin of rice under PMGKAY scheme are borne by the Government of India and there is no state share.

Despite the lockdown imposed due to the pandemic, FCI allows transportation of rice for the state and most of the rice allocated for the state comes from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and the rice are brought till Dimapur or Jiribam, he said, adding that FCI has storage capacity of 62,812 metric tonnes and all the rice allocated for the state for six months could be stored.

He also said that 56,336 metric tonne rice have already been stored at different storehouse of FCI.

Gongreipou further informed that the number of NFSA beneficiaries in the state has been reduced since April this year as many beneficiaries do not link ration card with Aadhaar.

However, ration card holders who did not link Aadhaar could still claim rice from any e-POS operated Fair Price Shop under One Nation One Ration Card norm, he added.

The press conference was also attended by FCI Division Office, Imphal divisional manager Rajesh Verma.

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