The government has extended the Antyodaya Anna Yojana for supplying highly subsidised foodgrains to the poorest of the poor to an additional 5 million families.

This is in line with the common minimum programme of the ruling alliance. Finance Minister P Chidambaram had announced it in the Budget as well, earmarking Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion) for this purpose.

The food ministry has sent a communication to all states to identify beneficiaries and issue distinctive ration cards to them. The allocation of foodgrains for the additional families will be made after this work is completed.

At present, 15 million families are covered under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, constituting about 23 per cent of the estimated total 65.2 million below poverty line families in the country.

With the expansion of the scheme, its coverage will be extended to about 20 million families, constituting 30.66 per cent of the total below poverty line households.

The scheme will cover all households at risk of hunger. These include landless agriculture labourers, marginal farmers, rural artisans and craftsmen, such as potters, tanners, weavers, blacksmiths and carpenters.

It will also include slum dwellers and persons earning their livelihood on daily basis in the unorganised sector like porters, coolies, rickshaw pullers, handcart pullers, fruit and flower sellers, snake charmers, rag pickers, cobblers, destitute and other similar categories in both rural and urban areas.

Households headed by widows or terminally ill, disabled or aged persons and all primitive tribal households will also be covered under the scheme.