Mumbai: The state govt is unlikely to increase the allowance under the Ladki Bahin Scheme from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,100 per month any time soon. Responding to questions raised by the opposition during a calling attention motion in the legislative council on Wednesday, Aditi Tatkare, minister for women and child welfare, said the promise to increase the amount is part of the election manifesto to be fulfilled over five years. “Nowhere did we say the amount will be increased after this budget or will be increased in this budget,” she said.
Opposition MLAs Anil Parab, Dr Pragnya Satav, Satej Patil, Bhai Jagtap and others raised the issue of the allowance under the scheme not being paid to the over two crore women beneficiaries for the past two months.
The opposition members said in the third week of Feb, it came to light that of the 2.6 crore women beneficiaries, only 2.4 crore are eligible for the scheme. The scrutiny of documents currently underway has revealed around 2.3 lakh of the ineligible women’s families owned a car, around 6.5 lakh were taking benefit of two govt schemes (Namo Shetkari and Ladki Bahin), and there were women whose income was more than Rs 2.4 lakh annually, while others lived outside the state.
Tatkare said application forms began to be filed from July, and scrutiny of application forms started in Aug. The eligibility criteria were announced along with the scheme, and these have not been changed, said Tatkare.
“Every dept has its own data on beneficiaries for its schemes. When we obtained data on those receiving benefits under the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana, the names of such beneficiaries were deleted from the Ladki Bahin Scheme,” she said. When the opposition demanded action against officials for dereliction of duty and money going into the account of those ineligible, Tatkare said owing to the model code of conduct, scrutiny was stopped in Oct, Nov and Dec and resumed in Jan.
Tatkare said of the 2.63 crore women who applied, 2.52 crore were found eligible. “Women in the 21-65 years age group are eligible. The list of beneficiaries will constantly change as the older women move out of the group or those who get married and move out of the state also are removed from the list,” she said.
On the incentive payment of Rs 50 per form to anganwadi workers and sevikas who helped fill the forms, she said Rs 31.33 crore has already been set aside as incentive payment. In some districts, it has been paid, and in others, scrutiny is under way on the number of eligible and ineligible forms filled by each of them, she said. The payment for Feb and March will be made together, said Tatkare.