Page 103 - Abhivruddhi

Food security is the essential support that is enabled through the PDS
in India. In March 2020, the Government of India announced the Pradhan
Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) as part of the pro-poor
package aimed at easing the hardships faced by the poor due to economic
disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Public Distribution
System (PDS) has undergone major technology-based transformations
including a central beneficiary database of nearly 80 crore digitised
NFSA beneficiaries. One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) has become
an integral part of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (ANBA) thereby
empowering migrants to seamlessly access PDS entitlements anywhere
in the country.
A recent (International monetary fund) IMF paper released in April
2020, titled ‘Pandemic, Poverty, and Inequality: Evidence from India’ says
that ‘extreme poverty was maintained below 1% in 2020 due to Pradhan
Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKY). The 52-page paper authored
by Surjit S Bhalla, Karan Bhasin and Arvind Virmani, also says that the
expansion of India’s food subsidy program absorbed a major part of the
pandemic shock. As per the paper, extreme poverty was as low as 1% in
2019 — a substantial reduction in poverty rates from 2011 levels.
3.2.2 PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi(PM Svanidhi)
One of the schemes that enabled easy access to street vendors is the PM
Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi(PM Svanidhi) scheme launched by
the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs to empower Street Vendors by
not only extending loans to them, but also for their holistic development
and economic upliftment. The scheme intends to facilitate collateral
free working capital loans of up to INR10,000/- of one-year tenure, to
approximately 50 lakh street vendors, to help resume their businesses in
the urban areas, including surrounding peri-urban/rural areas.
3.2.3 Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY)
Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) is a scheme launched in
2015 for providing loans up to 10 lakh to the non-corporate, non-farm
small/micro enterprises. The borrower can access these loans through
Commercial Banks, RRBs, Small Finance Banks, MFIs and NBFCs or can
apply online through the portal. Under the aegis of PMMY, MUDRA has
created three products namely ‘Shishu’, ‘Kishore’ and ‘Tarun’ to signify
the stage of growth / development and funding needs of the beneficiary
micro unit / entrepreneur and also provide a reference point for the next
phase of graduation / growth.

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