8,000 govt employees received Ladki Bahin benefit, says minister Tatkare

Nagpur, Dec 10 (PTI) The Maharashtra assembly on Wednesday saw sharp exchanges between the treasury benches and the opposition over alleged corruption in the Mukhyamantri Mazi Ladki Bahin Yojana for women, after the government admitted that some 8,000 state employees received aid under the scheme despite being ineligible.

Women and Child Development Minister Aditi Tatkare also informed that between 12,000 and 14,000 women who did not have bank accounts used their husbands' accounts to receive the monthly sum of Rs 1,500 under the scheme.

Many of these women had already availed benefits of other government schemes (which made them ineligible for Ladki Bahin aid), she said, adding that their accounts would be scrutinised over the next two months.

"Some 8,000 employees from various state departments have been found taking benefit of the Ladki Bahin scheme. They cannot take such benefit. The state government has started recovery of the amount from such beneficiaries," the minister said.

The scheme, similar to the Ladli Behna scheme in Madhya Pradesh, is credited by some political observers for the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP alliance's resounding victory in the state elections.

The debate started after Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Sunil Prabhu moved a calling attention motion, claiming large-scale corruption in the scheme.

As many as 12,431 men fraudulently registered under the scheme and received money, causing a loss of Rs 164 crore to the exchequer, he alleged.

Responding to the allegations, Tatkare said her department received a total of 2,63,83,589 applications, of which 2,43,82,936 were approved. When the scheme was launched, the department did not have access to beneficiary data from other departments, she said, adding that after learning about overlaps with the NaMo Shetkari scheme, "with the help of the IT department, we scrutinised the data and filtered out some beneficiaries." Congress MLA Nana Patole said ASHA workers, Anganwadi Sevikas and Gram Sevaks were given enrolment targets, which led to bogus applications being filed. The government must answer for the "mismanagement of public money," he said.

Tatkare countered the criticism from NCP (SP) leader Jayant Patil about the introduction of e-KYC and additional conditions later, saying KYC was necessary because many women lacked bank accounts and had furnished the bank details of male family members.

Patil questioned the timing, saying, "The state government does not want to spend more, that is why it is now using various filters to cut down funds disbursement (for the scheme). Why was KYC not done earlier?" Tatkare assured the House that all cases where money was deposited in men's accounts would be examined and "strict action would be taken, and recovery initiated if it is confirmed that men are benefiting from the women's scheme." Minister Shambhuraj Desai (Shiv Sena) and Jayant Patil sparred over the scheme's electoral impact. Patil remarked that the chief minister who introduced the scheme moved from "number 1 to number 2." Desai retorted that Eknath Shinde, who was chief minister when the scheme was rolled out last year and who is now a deputy CM, "will not always remain at number 2." Shinde, who had launched the scheme ahead of the 2024 assembly elections, defended it strongly and accused the opposition of spreading rumours that it would be discontinued.

Some opposition leaders even challenged the scheme in the court, he said, and credited women voters for the Mahayuti alliance's electoral success.

To Patole's demand that the government immediately raise the monthly assistance from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,100 as promised, Shinde said, "We will give the benefit of Rs 2,100 to the 'Ladki Bahins' at the appropriate time." PTI ND KRK