NEW DELHI: Claiming that no citizen went hungry during the Covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India is rapidly moving towards the milestone of 50 crore vaccinations, while stressing that the empowerment of the poor is the top priority of the government.
Stating that the world has been taking note of the Garib Kalyan Yojna, the Prime Minister said that 80 crore people are getting double ration, the free grains in addition to the National Food Security Act. He said that the government is spending Rs 2 lakh crore in implementing the scheme.
“There used to be such schemes in the past with increasing budgetary allocations. But hunger and malnutrition was never addressed. One former Prime Minister had also remarked that `1 sent from New Delhi actually translated to 15 paisa in the hands of the beneficiaries. We made the difference by effective delivery of the scheme,” said the Prime Minister, while addressing beneficiaries of the PM Garib Kalyan Yojna from different parts of Gujarat through video conference.
“After Independence, almost every government talked about providing cheap food to the poor. The scope and budget of ration schemes increased year after year, but the effect it should have had remained limited. The country’s food stocks kept increasing, but starvation and malnutrition did not decrease in that proportion. One reason for this was the lack of an effective delivery system.
To change this situation, work was started afresh after 2014,” said the Prime Minister, adding that the use of technology helped in weeding out fake beneficiaries and ration cards were linked to Aadhar cards.
He praised the Gujarat government for taking care of the migrant labourers, fulfilling the purpose of “One Nation One Ration Card initiative”.