The celebration is over for a group of women who have been added to the beneficiary list to avail themselves of the ‘Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Scheme facilities, for which they do not fulfill the criteria. On Thursday, Aditi Tatkare, the Minister for Women and Child Development (WCD), said that the government will soon start a process to clear the list as it contains many wrong entries.
The Maharashtra government has tried to address fraudulent beneficiaries of the ‘Ladki Bahin Yojana’. The government has since consulted the Income Tax and the Transport Departments to authenticate the beneficiaries. This has been done due to an issue arising over people who do not qualify for the scheme being included in it.
Mahayuti Government Launches Ladki Bahin Scheme Ahead Of Elections
The Mahayuti government began implementing the Ladki Bahin scheme in June 2024 to gain voter support before the assembly elections. The scheme assured women from families with monthly incomes of less than ₹2.5 Lakh, ₹1500 per month. Further, they assured an increase in the amount to ₹2100 per month if voters chose their party again in the election. The scheme was put in place five months ago, as revealed in earlier studies.
Ladki Bahin Scheme’s Cost And Eligibility
When the Ladki Bahin scheme was launched, the then Maharashtra Finance Minister, Ajit Pawar, said that the state would spend ₹46,000 crore to extend benefits to 2.47 crore beneficiaries. The Finance Department had cautioned that the proposed expenditure would stretch the state’s financial capacity to the extent that it might struggle to meet recurrent expenses like government salaries. The matter of ineligible women being included was even debated before the assembly elections last year and during the scheme’s rollout.
Ladki Bahin Scheme Beneficiaries Announced After Mahayuti’s Victory
In Maharashtra, after the massive victory of the Mahayuti alliance and the subsequent return of Devendra Fadnavis as the chief minister, on 6th December 2024, according to HT, he initiated a process to clean up the list of Ladki Bahin beneficiaries.
Till now, 24.47 lakh women have been given ₹7500 each for the five months from July to November, and now, the money for December is being disbursed.
The Women and Child Development Minister addressed the media, assuring that the examination of the list had started and was being carried out by the state government after the cabinet meeting on Thursday. Tatkare said, “The state government is going to start scrutiny of the list of beneficiaries of Ladki Bahin. This scrutiny is necessary to ensure that only women who belong to the lower economic strata and have a family income of less than ₹2.5 lakh per annum can avail themselves of the scheme.”
To facilitate this, the government intends to request support from the Income Tax Department to confirm the income of each family applying for the program. Families owning four-wheelers, women who have shifted to other states after marriage, and applicants whose Aadhaar and bank account details do not match will not receive further installments. This step aligns with the long-term strategy to ensure that only the poorest women benefit from the scheme.
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