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State sweats to recover Ladki Bahin, PM Kisan funds from ineligible recipients

By, Mumbai
Jan 25, 2025 09:49 AM IST

Maharashtra faces a ₹4,000 crore recovery challenge as 3 million ineligible women and 1.2 million farmers received benefits from popular schemes.

Weeks after the Mahayuti swept to power in Maharashtra on the back of popular schemes like the Ladki Bahin Yojna and the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi bureaucrats are scrambling to recover crores of rupees that were paid to ineligible recipients.

According to government estimates, there are three million women who do not meet the eligibility criteria for Ladki Bahin but who got six instalments of <span class='webrupee'>₹</span>1,500 per month and 1.2 million ineligible farmers in the state who got dole under the PM Kisan Yojna. (HT Photo)
According to government estimates, there are three million women who do not meet the eligibility criteria for Ladki Bahin but who got six instalments of 1,500 per month and 1.2 million ineligible farmers in the state who got dole under the PM Kisan Yojna. (HT Photo)

According to government estimates, there are three million women who do not meet the eligibility criteria for Ladki Bahin but who got six instalments of 1,500 per month and 1.2 million ineligible farmers in the state who got dole under the PM Kisan Yojna. The cumulative amount to be recovered is upwards of 4,000 crore.

Maharashtra has a fiscal deficit of 1,10,355 crore according to the budget presented in June 2024, and a revenue deficit of 20,151 crore. Last week, speaking to the media in Pune, finance minister Ajit Pawar conceded that the government had passed on the benefits of the schemes to recipients without ensuring their accounts were linked to Aadhaar. As reported earlier by this newspaper, one of the first decisions of the Devendra Fadnavis government has been to recalibrate the list of Ladki Bahin beneficiaries. The second aspect of that, and which may not be easy to execute, caution bureaucrats, is to recover the monies already paid to ineligible beneficiaries by the previous government.

The state, at present, pays 3,700 crore each month as direct cash benefit to 24.6 million women under the Ladki Bahin scheme. The women and child welfare department which implements the scheme has now begun collating data of other direct cash transfer schemes to verify eligibility of the Ladki Bahin beneficiaries. The department is also seeking data of income tax payees from the central government and data on the number of people who own four-wheelers from the state transport department to rule out those who are ineligible.

The scheme was launched in July last year with an eye on the women voters in the state and it has been widely credited for the Mahayuti’s massive win. However, it now transpires that the government had failed to do due diligence in passing on direct cash benefits to women in the state. It has emerged that most of the 1.8 million women beneficiaries of PM Kisan Yojna under which beneficiaries get 3,000 per quarter, and many of the 0.8 million women beneficiaries under the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Pension Scheme (SGNPS) who get 1,500 a month, had also applied for the 1,500 under the Ladki Bahin Yojana and got it. This is in contravention of the government’s own stipulation that no one can be a beneficiary of more than one direct cash transfer benefit scheme.

“The government is now streamlining the list of beneficiaries by ensuring there is no duplication. In addition, the list procured from the transport department will enable us to ascertain if the beneficiaries meet the family income criterion of (a maximum of) 2.5 lakh a year. Similarly, the income tax payee list will help us weed out the tax payers from the list of beneficiaries,” said an official from the women and child welfare department.

The PM-Kisan was launched in April 2019, ahead of the last Lok Sabha and assembly elections, and a scrutiny of the beneficiaries two years on revealed that there were 1.33 million ineligible farmers who were given 1,554 crore in all, under the scheme in Maharashtra. The government, however, has since been able to recover only 94 crore from the 1,554 crore wrongfully disbursed.

“A third of the beneficiaries of PM Kisan scheme were income tax payers. The central government has said farmers who have paid income tax in three of the last five financial years will be declared ineligible and we will now go by that,” said a bureaucrat from the agriculture department, who asked not to be named.

Several other states too are grappling with such recoveries in the PM Kisan scheme. In Maharashtra, the large pay out under Ladki Bahin has added to the state’s financial woes.

Bureaucrats in the state finance department expect at least 6 million beneficiaries to be lopped off in the revised list. “There are 23.9 million yellow ration cards (indicating those below the poverty line) and saffron rations cards (those with incomes below 1 lakh per annum) in the state, against which there 24.7 million beneficiaries under Ladki Bahin,” said a senior official from the finance department. “There are over 2.5 million beneficiaries who are availing benefits of more than two direct cash transfer schemes. Contrast this with 12.6 million beneficiaries of Madhya Pradesh’s Ladli Behna. If consider MP’s population (89 million as opposed to Maharashtra’s 127 million ) and per capita income ( 1.55 lakh against Maharashtra’s 2.77 lakh) the number of beneficiaries in Maharashtra should not cross 20 million,” he added on the basis of a back of the envelope calculation.

Will recovery be possible?

So far, only 4,500 women have voluntarily given up their claim on Ladki Bahin dole. “They have sent us details of the amount they have received in their accounts,” said an officer of the women and child welfare department. “We could request the women to voluntarily pay back the excessive amount they have received, but recovery from the future instalments of other schemes like SGNPY seems to be difficult. It is also true that rooting out women whose husbands pay income tax or own four wheelers is difficult for various technical and legal reasons,” he added, asking not to be named. Political leadership in the state, he said, is divided over whether or not to recover money paid to ineligible beneficiaries. “In all likelihood the pragmatic view of not pushing for recovery of the pay outs to ineligible women will prevail.”

Instead, the government is pinning hopes on “competent” women who will voluntarily surrender the benefits they have taken so far, said women and child welfare minister Aditi Tatkare. “We have started cross-verification of the beneficiaries. We expect more and more ‘competent’ women to come forward and return the benefits they have taken so far.” In addition, her department is also launching a grievance redressal mechanism that will encourage people to lodge complaints against ineligible women.

In the run up to the election, the Mahayuti promised to increase the pay out under Ladki Bahin from 1,500 to 2,100 should they return to power. There is no clarity on when that will happen.

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