The free ration scheme introduced by the government during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown should not be extended past December 2022, said NITI Aayog member and agricultural economist Professor Ramesh Chand . The professor's comments come amid a wider debate on "freebies" being provided by various governments across the country.
The PMGKAY scheme has been extended multiple times with the latest extensionto continue until the yearend.
"According to me, this is my personal view, I think this should be the last extension," Professor Chand said in an exclusive interview with CNN-News18.
The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) was launched in March 2020 after the first lockdown was announced. The scheme aimed to provide 5 kg rice or wheat and 1 kg dal, to the poor. The food transfer scheme was critical to support the poorest of Indians from slipping into extreme poverty, the International Monetary Fund said in one of its working papers, 'Pandemic, Poverty, and Inequality: Evidence from India'.
Professor Chand believes that the scheme should not be extended any further, with India's Public Distribution System (PDS) already providing large food safety net to families who had been using the PMGKAY scheme .
"After that (ending the scheme), we should continue with PDS where we are already giving 5 kg per person per month of rice and wheat. We will be going ahead with that, but this additional amount, after these three months, my personal view is that we should not go for it," he added.
Professor Chand's recommendations are similar to the suggestions made by the Department of Expenditure (DoE) of the Finance Ministry, which had suggested ending the scheme in June. The DoE had shared that the scheme should not be extended past September due to both fiscal and food safety reasons.
The cost for the latest extension comes out to be Rs 44,762 crore and total cost to the exchequer for the scheme is to the tune of Rs 3.91 lakh crore.
