MUMBAI: The BJP-led Mahayuti government’s flagship Ladki Bahin scheme, under fire since its launch for draining the state’s treasury, has given away ₹ 9,605 crore to individuals who were not eligible for the scheme.
The scheme’s list of beneficiaries has been sanitised several times over two years but this did not weed out all the ineligible beneficiaries. Interestingly, the government will not recover the money handed out to most of the ineligible beneficiaries. It will recover it only from government employees and officers who received the monthly payout.
The state spent ₹ 9,605 crore on 9.2 million ineligible beneficiaries until June 2026, according to data obtained by HT through a Right to Information (RTI) application.
“The decision was announced by the chief minister ahead of the monsoon session of the state legislature in June,” said an official with the state women and child development department that oversees the Ladki Bahin Scheme.
“We have written to the district collectorates to recover the money taken by government employees and officers and have sought a report. Another 170,000 beneficiaries were excluded after verification at the district level. The state government has spent ₹ 76,261 crore on the scheme over 24 months. The number of payment credit entries should have been 397.58 million in 24 months, against which 461 million credit entries were recorded during the period. This resulted in ₹ 9,605 crore being paid through 64.03 million credit entries into accounts of ineligible beneficiaries, according to the RTI information. There are 450,000 such beneficiaries who had received benefits during the initial months, and recovery is due from them. The officer said the 6.2 million beneficiaries who failed to complete e-KYC did not complete the formality fearing action for having availed benefits they were not entitled to,” the official said.
Because another family member had enrolled under the scheme; 180,000 were older than the age limit of 65; and 450,000 were government employees, of these, 6.2 million beneficiaries were removed for failing to complete e-KYC; 1.6 million were deleted as their family income exceeded the annual ₹ 2.5-lakh cutoff; 360,000 were receiving benefits under the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Anudan Yojana; 250,000 were removed.
The money will not be recovered from the other beneficiaries,” said the official.
