The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led central government on Saturday announced an extension to the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) scheme by six months.

The scheme, that provides food grains for free to the poor, will now stand extended till September 30 this year. The cost incurred by the government for this will be around Rs 80,000 crores.

In the last two years, ore than Rs 2.6 lakh crore went under the PMGKAY scheme which was supposed to end on March 31. It was introduced by the Modi government following the stringent restrictions that were in place in light of the spread of Covid-19.

An official statement said, "In keeping with the concern and sensitivity towards poor and vulnerable sections of society, the Union Cabinet has extended the PM-GKAY scheme for another six months i.e, till September 2022 (Phase VI)."

"The government has spent approximately ₹ 2.60 lakh crore so far and another ₹ 80,000 crore will be spent over the next six months till September 2022 taking the total expenditure under PM-GKAY to nearly ₹ 3.40 lakh crore," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Union minister Piyush Goyal said in a tweet that the extension of the scheme shows the Modi government's sensitivity towards poor.

"Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly abated and economic activities are gathering momentum, this PM-GKAY extension would ensure that no poor household goes to bed without food during this time of recovery," the statement added.

Notably, under the extended PMGKAY scheme, each beneficiary will get additional five kg free ration per person every month in addition to their normal quota of food grains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

The statement further said, “This means that every poor household would get nearly double the normal quantity of ration”, adding, “With another 244 lakh tonnes of free foodgrains under this extension (Phase VI), the aggregate allocation of free foodgrains under the PM-GKAY now stand at 1,003 lakh tonnes of food grains.”