Acting on complaints regarding bogus beneficiaries of the Ladki Bahin scheme, the Maharashtra government has sought information from the Income Tax and Transport departments for verification, PTI quoted state Women and Child Development Minister Aditi Tatkare as saying on Thursday.

Under the Ladki Bahin scheme, women between the ages of 21 to 65, whose annual family income is under Rs 2.5 lakh, receive Rs 1,500 per month in the form of direct bank transfers.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party had announced it would increase the monthly payments to Rs 2,100.

“The Maharashtra government is not taking any drive to scrutinise the beneficiaries of the Ladki Bahin Yojana,” said Tatkare on Thursday. “We have not changed any government policies. We are only addressing the complaints filed with local government offices.”

The minister said the verification process was initiated after complaints emerged from the state’s Palghar, Yavatmal, Wardha, and Phaltan regions regarding women “with income above the set threshold of Rs 2.5 lakh annually or those who own a four-wheeler” becoming beneficiaries of the scheme.

Tatkare added that the state government does not have an estimation of the number of beneficiaries that may be removed after the scrutiny.

“We need some time to get a fair idea about it,” she said. “We have encountered issues such as Aadhaar mismatches with some applications being submitted multiple times. Then there is a domicile issue, wherein beneficiaries hailing from Maharashtra moved elsewhere.”

She also said that some beneficiaries had told the government they wished to withdraw their names from the scheme after securing government jobs, reported PTI.

This comes nearly a month after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis intended to identify ineligible beneficiaries of the cash transfer scheme, according to The Hindu.

“The scheme will not be entirely scrapped,” Fadnavis had said. “The scrutiny will follow the approach used in the PM Kisan Yojana, where ineligible beneficiaries voluntarily relinquished their benefits.”

The Ladki Bahin scheme is said to have played a crucial role in the Mahayuti alliance – comprising the BJP, the Shiv Sena group led by Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party faction led by Pawar – winning 230 seats in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly on November 20.

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