Antyodaya Anna Yojana

More than 242 lakh Families having highly Subsidised Foodgrains under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana

More than 242 lakh families under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana are being provided highly subsidised 35 kg foodgrains per month through TPDS. This information was given by the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Raosaheb Patil Danve in a written reply in Lok Sabha today. He said the AAY families are to be identified by States/Union Territories (UTs) as per the following criteria: i)                    Landless agriculture labourers, marginal farmers, rural artisans/craftsmen such as potters, tanners, weavers, blacksmiths, carpenters, slum dwellers, and persons earning their livelihood on daily basis in the informal sector like porters, coolies, rickshaw pullers, hand cart pullers, fruit and flower sellers, snake charmers, rag pickers, cobblers, destitute and other similar categories in both rural and urban areas ii)                  Households headed by widows or terminally ill persons/disabled persons/persons aged 60 years or more with no assured means of subsistence or societal support iii)                Widows or terminally ill persons or disabled persons or persons aged 60 years or more or single women or single men with no family or societal support or assured means of subsistence iv)                All primitive tribal households v)                  All eligible Below Poverty Line (BPL) families of HIV positive persons.  The Minister said that requests have been received from a few State Governments to increase the number of beneficiaries under AAY but it could not be acceded to as the number is fixed for every State.  State/UTs are advised from time to time to review the existing list of AAY beneficiaries and remove the ineligible beneficiaries so as to include only the most eligible. Shri Danve clarified that AAY scheme has not been separately evaluated.  This Department however has been getting the functioning of TPDS, including the implementation of AAY, evaluated by different agencies from time to time. These evaluation studies have revealed certain shortcomings/deficiencies in the functioning of TPDS, such as inclusion/exclusion errors, leakages/diversion of foodgrains, etc.  The reports received have been sent to the concerned States/UTs for taking necessary remedial measures to remove the deficiencies noticed in the functioning of TPDS.