Supriya Sule Maharashtra Majhi Ladki Bahin Scheme Beneficiaries Drop Ekyc

Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MP Supriya Sule on Monday alleged that more than 1.25 crore women beneficiaries have been removed from Maharashtra’s flagship Majhi Ladki Bahin scheme since December 2024, raising questions over the government’s beneficiary verification process and the use of public funds. The scheme provides a monthly financial assistance of Rs 1,500 to eligible women. Earlier, the Opposition had claimed that around 80 lakh beneficiaries had been excluded from the scheme following the government’s e-KYC verification drive. Sule said discrepancies in official figures and data available on the scheme’s portal indicate that the number of beneficiaries has fallen far more sharply than the government has acknowledged. “Following the implementation of e-KYC, the number of beneficiaries gradually declined. Media reports suggest that around 80 lakh women have been declared ineligible and that only about 1.66 crore women will continue to receive benefits under the scheme,” Sule said. Also Read | Is Maharashtra’s Ladki Bahin Yojana facing a budget cut? However, she claimed that data available on the portal presents an even lower figure. “The portal shows only 1.12 crore applications and 1.06 crore approved beneficiaries. If the figures from December 2024 are taken into account, it appears that more than 1.25 crore women have been rendered ineligible under the scheme,” she alleged. Sule said the state government had initially claimed that 2.38 crore women had benefited from the scheme and that more than Rs 17,505 crore had been disbursed by December 2024. Subsequently, the government stated that the number of beneficiaries had increased to between 2.46 crore and 2.48 crore, which she described as the scheme’s peak. Questioning the discrepancy between official claims and portal data, Sule asked why significantly lower numbers were now being reflected online. Also Read | Maharashtra govt makes e-KYC mandatory for Ladki Bahin beneficiaries; sets two-month deadline “If the government maintains that there are still 1.66 to 1.68 crore beneficiaries, why does the portal show much lower figures? Who were the beneficiaries announced earlier and why were such a large number of women declared ineligible during verification?” she said, demanding a transparent explanation from the government. The NCP (SP) leader further alleged that the issue raises serious concerns about whether public funds were disbursed to ineligible beneficiaries over the past year. “The scheme is funded by taxpayers’ money. A serious question arises whether the government has been distributing public funds to ineligible beneficiaries for the last year or year-and-a-half. This exposes the government’s failure,” she said. The party has demanded the appointment of a high-level inquiry committee to investigate the matter and sought an independent financial and administrative audit of the scheme. “It must be made clear who received taxpayers’ money wrongly, who is responsible for it and who the actual beneficiaries were. The people of Maharashtra deserve complete transparency,” Sule said.