Karnataka govt partially suspends registrations for Gruha Lakshmi scheme

In an announcement the child and women development department said that the registrations will be resumed again, and they will announce a date soon.

The Karnataka government has partially stopped taking registrations for the Gruha Lakshmi scheme from Thursday. The women and child development department of Karnataka took the decision to avoid confusion during the process of first installment of ₹2000 to beneficiaries.

The Congress government launched the Gruha Lakshmi scheme on August 30 in Mysuru. (PTI)

In an announcement the child and women development department said that the registrations will be resumed again, and they will announce a date soon.

In the last week of August, The Karnataka government launched the Gruha Lakshmi scheme at Mysuru in the presence of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan. The scheme provides cash assistance of ₹2,000 a month to female heads of households in the state. With a click on the tablet, Gandhi transferred the amount into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries of Gruha Lakshmi Yojana, through direct benefit transfer (DBT).

The state government was also allowed to modify ration cards from September 1 to September 10, to avail the benefits of the ‘Gruha Lakshmi’ scheme. The state government had earlier mandated that only women whose names are mentioned as head of the family in the ration cards, or Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards, Above Poverty Line cards and Antyodaya cards, were eligible for the scheme. It had not permitted citizens to make changes to the ration cards. According to the food and civil supplies department, more than 600,000 BPL card holders have men as the head of the family.

A total of 13 million women have so far enrolled for the scheme so far. The state government has earmarked ₹17,500 crore for the programme in the current financial year and around ₹32,000 crore next year.