india

Updated: Apr 23, 2020 20:39 IST

The union government on Thursday said more than 33 crore citizens had already received direct benefits worth Rs 31,235 crore from the Rs 1.71 lakh crore relief package announced under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package to mitigate against the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

A government release said Rs 10,025 crore was disbursed to 20.05 crore women holding Jan Dhan accounts, Rs 1405 crore had been distributed to about 2.82 crore old age persons, widows and disabled persons, Rs 16,146 crore was transferred to 8 crore farmers as the first instalment of PM-KISAN and Rs 3,497 crore worth of financial support was provided to 2.17 crore building and other construction workers.

The centre said that the above benefits were transferred using fintech and digital technology ensuring swift, efficient and direct transfer to the beneficiary ensuring there is no leakage of the relief.

The government has announced a slew of financial packages to deal with the impact of coronavirus, the largest among them being a 1.17 lakh crore relief package announced by the finance minister in the month of March.

Government had also announced free LPG cylinders for three months to the beneficiaries of Prime Minister Ujjwala Yojana scheme and it claimed on Thursday that total 3.05 crore LPG cylinders have been booked under the scheme so far and 2.66 crore free cylinders have already been delivered to the beneficiaries.

The government added that approximately 6.06 lakh members of EPFO have also availed of Rs. 1,954 crores worth of nonrefundable advance against 75% of the outstanding balance in their PF accounts or 3 months’ wages.

Apart from the above facility, the Centre had announced that it would fund three months PF contributions—both from the employee and the employer side—amounting to 24% of wages of EPFO members who earn less than Rs 15000 per month in establishments that have up to 100 workers.

Centre said an amount of Rs.1000 crore has already been released to EPFO for the above scheme taking care of the contributions for the month of April, 2020. A total of 10.6 lakh employees have benefitted so far and a total of Rs. 162.11 crore has been transferred in 68,775 establishments.

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The government added that it had distributed free food grains to 39.27 crore beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana. It added that 1.27 crore person’s man-days of work have been generated under the national rural work guarantee scheme MNREGA and Rs 7300 crore has been released to states to liquidate pending dues of both wage and material.

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The insurance scheme announced for health workers employed in the government hospitals and health care centres has also been operationalised by New India Assurance covering 22.12 Lakh health workers.