New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS): Dwelling at length on the efforts to deal with the Covid pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that in the past, when such a big crisis hit the country then all the systems of the country were shaken badly but today in India every citizen is fighting this pandemic with full force.

The double engine government has ensured that the schemes made for the poor, downtrodden, backward, tribals are implemented expeditiously, Modi said while interacting with beneficiaries of 'Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana' (PMGKAY) in Uttar Pradesh via video conference. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was also present on the occasion, a government release said.

"An effective strategy kept the cost of food items in control, suitable measures were undertaken to keep up the supply of seeds or fertilizers for farmers and as a result the farmers gave record production and the government also made record procurement under MSP," the Prime Minister said.

He praised the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister for record MSP procurement in UP. In UP the number of farmers benefited from MSP doubled during the past year. In UP, more than Rs 24,000 crore were deposited directly into the account of 13 lakh farmer families as the price of their produce. In Uttar Pradesh 17 lakh families have been allotted houses, lakhs of poor families got toilets, one half got free gas and lakhs of electricity connections. As many as 27 lakh households have received piped water in the state, the Prime Minister informed.

In 2020, for a period of eight months from April 2020 to November 2020, under PM-GKAY, Uttar Pradesh was allocated around 58.2 lakh MT foodgrains by the Central Government for free of cost distribution to NFSA beneficiaries at 5 kg per person per month. Similarly, an allocation of 51.5 lakh MT of PM-GKAY food grains has been provisioned for the state for seven months in 2021 from May 2021 to November 2021.

Under the PM-GKAY 2020 (April to November 2020) on a monthly basis an average of around 96.6% of foodgrains was distributed in Uttar Pradesh and under PM-GKAY 2021 (i.e., from May to November 2021), on a monthly basis, so far, an average of nearly 96 per cent of foodgrains has been distributed from May 2021 till July 2021.