According to Maharashtra’s flagship social program, the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, approximately 80 lakh women have been excluded from receiving benefits as part of the statewide e-KYC verification process. This has cut the overall number of beneficiaries from close to 2.4 crore–2.48 crore to approximately 1.68 crore–1.7 crore.
Massive Reduction in Beneficiary List
The Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana is the second major social program opened just prior to the upcoming general election for the Maharashtra assembly and provides women that meet the qualifications of this program with ₹1,500 a month. This program is one of the top welfare programs launched by the State Government aimed at helping low-income women.
What Caused the Exclusion of the 80 Lakh Women?
Yashwant Rao Bhosale, a senior official at the Maharashtra Government’s Food and Supply Department, stated that this mass exclusion of women from the beneficiary list was primarily due to the completion of the long-term e-KYC and review of the verification status of all the records associated with women that were previously registered as beneficiaries as well as providing extended periods for women already on the beneficiary list more than once and surpassing the established deadline on April 30.
As stated by Mr. Bhosale, one of the reasons cited for why the women on the beneficiary list were excluded from receiving disbursements was not 100% completing the e-KYC but over a large number of the women had other reasons for not being eligible for the program; these include but are not limited to incomplete verification, discrepancies in documents, incorrect information in your benefits record, income violations, age violations, and duplication of benefits in other government programs.
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Government Defends the Decision
The Maharashtra government has justified its verification drive as essential to make sure that only real and entitled beneficiaries want financial assistance. Officials say that ample opportunity has been given to women to complete their e-KYC process and correct errors in their applications.
Government, sources estimate that about 50 to 55 lakh women did not finish the required e-KYC process. Over 12 lakh other beneficiaries are identified to be income taxpayers and over 4 ½ lakhs of women are over the maximum age limit of 65 years for the plan. Multiple lakhs of women were determined to be getting benefits from the same or similar government welfare plans.
Authorities further clarified that there are no plans at this time to either extend the e-KYC deadline or re-open the recruitment processes for new beneficiaries.
Women Find Themselves Suddenly Stopped From Receiving Financial Assistance
Now this ruling has generated confusion for many thousands of women who have relied on the financial assistance that is provided monthly. Reportedly, there are many beneficiaries who received no payments because their name was deleted from the database of eligible women paid for monthly assistance. Some women allege that they have submitted all the necessary details that they were told to submit but have not yet received any of the recently submitted payments.
Officials say that they are validating complaints made by eligible women who were denied the right to receive the payments by verifying if they were paid or what the problems with the validating process are.
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Opposition Alleges Financial Crisis
In a matter of days, it has become a rapidly escalating political flashpoint. The Maharashtra government is under attack from opposition parties for collecting the names of individuals receiving benefits for financial reasons as opposed to reasons of administration. They argue that the government is taking drastic steps to ensure that they can continue to afford the large amount of money associated with the scheme.
Supriya Sule, a Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leader, has been outspoken in her opposition to the government. She claims that the women whom this scheme was meant to help are being unfairly taken advantage of. She has raised concerns regarding the processing of the verification process and has demanded that no woman who is properly eligible to receive assistance from the programme be denied access to financial support based on procedural problems.
Scheme Still remains operational
Governor Akhilesh Yadav’s administration is standing firm in their position that the Ladki Bahin Yojana (Ladki Bahin Scheme) has not and will not be terminated and that the verification process is designed to ensure that the system operates most effectively in order to allow all individuals who qualify to receive support according to the rules of the scheme.
As complaints are going to be reviewed during the next several weeks and political debate evolved regarding this major welfare programme in Maharashtra, more scrutiny is expected in the verification process. To the government, the verification process represents a “cleaning up” of the system, while opposition parties will continue to raise questions about the impact that the programme has had on the millions of women who depend on the financial support that is provided to them on a monthly basis through the scheme.
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