DNA Special: Why the IMF praised Modi government's food security scheme

In a new report, the IMF has praised the Modi government's plan to provide free food grains. It has said that Prime Minister Modi saved crores of people from going into poverty with his strategy.

The research paper published by the IMF states that the Food Security Scheme launched by the Government of India during the Corona epidemic in the year 2020 saved the country from going into poverty. According to this report, 0.8 percent of the people in India were very poor in 2019. But in the year 2020, when Covid came and the lockdown was imposed in the country, the number of poor people in India was estimated to increase manifold. But this did not happen because of the government of India's scheme of free food grains.

Even in the year 2020, the number of extremely poor people in our country was 0.8 per cent. Apart from this, due to this scheme, the economic inequality in the society has also not increased. In fact, it has now come down to the level of 0.294. That is, in the financial year 1993-1994, when inequality was at its lowest level, this figure has reached around that. The level of inequality in India at that time was 0.284.

The Central Government had implemented this Food Security Scheme on March 26, 2020, which was named as Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana and under this scheme, 5 kg of food grains and one kilogram of gram is given every month to the economically weaker sections of the people and the poor. And so far, 81 crore 35 lakh people of the country have got the benefit of this scheme. And just last month, the Central Government extended the scheme till September 2022. Since 2020, five phases of the scheme have been completed, on which the central government has spent Rs 2,60,000 crore.

On the one hand, there is India, which in difficult times gave its citizens the necessary food grains and saved them from going into poverty. But now look at how China is treating its citizens. In Shanghai, China, a lockdown has been imposed due to the increasing cases of corona at this time and atrocities are being committed on people in the name of Covid restrictions there.

Thousands of Chinese military soldiers are stationed on the streets of Shanghai, and they are beating and torturing local citizens to get them admitted to isolation centers. There is not even enough space in these isolation centres that people can easily lie down in them. And that's why these people are demanding quarantine in their homes. But China is forcibly locking these citizens in isolation centers. Seeing these pictures from China, today you will definitely say that you are lucky to live in India, not China.