FOOD BILL

PM Modi’s announcement extending the PMGKAY by five years may not impact the fiscal deficit target immediately, but higher outlays on welfare schemes ahead of the 2024 polls may prove tricky

-  SURABHI

AT AN ELECTION rally in Chhattisgarh’s Durg, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise announcement that the government will extend the scheme to provide free food-grain for five more years until December 2028. Of course, it wasn’t expected to come to an abrupt end.

Launched at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) provides 5 kg of free foodgrain per person per month and was set to be discontinued by December-end, 2023. The scheme has had a huge impact with an estimated 813.5 million beneficiaries, or nearly twothirds of the country’s population.

The extension makes for good optics, and is being seen as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s largesse to woo voters in the ongoing state elections, and has rankled the Opposition that called it a violation of the model code of conduct. But in terms of the fiscal math, it may not have much of an impact. Government officials and experts believe the Centre is likely to meet its fiscal deficit target of 5.9 per cent of the GDP for the current financial year. The fiscal deficit is the difference between the government’s expenditure and its revenue. But, for now, buoyant tax revenue and controlled expenditure are expected to cushion the impact of continuing the scheme.

THE MATH