Mumbai: When Maharashtra’s Chief Minister launched the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana in June 2024, it was hailed as one of the state’s most transformative welfare programs. The scheme, aimed at supporting women aged 21 to 65 by offering ₹1,500 per month, promised economic relief and dignity for over 2.41 crore beneficiaries across the state.
Costing the exchequer nearly ₹3,700 crore every month, the initiative symbolized the government’s commitment to gender empowerment. But barely a year later, it has become a symbol of administrative chaos.
According to a recent verification exercise uncovered shocking irregularities: over 12,400 men and nearly 78,000 women were found to have wrongly received payments meant exclusively for women in need. The revelation has triggered public outrage, internal probes, and renewed scrutiny of how welfare funds are disbursed and monitored.
The RTI That Unraveled a ₹164-Crore Anomaly
The irregularities came to light after a series of Right to Information (RTI) queries exposed the scale of the problem. Between June 2024 and July 2025, 12,431 men received a cumulative ₹24.24 crore in benefits under the program, despite being clearly ineligible.
Officials later confirmed that an additional 77,980 women, too, failed to meet the eligibility criteria—primarily income ceilings of ₹2.5 lakh annually or false declarations of property ownership. These recipients collectively drew over ₹140 crore in payments over a twelve-month period.
Government sources admitted that the process of verification had been “hurried” in the run-up to the 2024 assembly elections, when the BJP-led Mahayuti government pushed for rapid rollouts. The Women and Child Development Department, tasked with implementing the scheme, has since begun disciplinary proceedings against 2,400 government employees involved in data handling and verification.
FCRF Launches CCLP Program to Train India’s Next Generation of Cyber Law Practitioners
Data Gaps, Duplicates, and the Machinery of Misreporting
Investigators reviewing the scheme’s operations identified a range of administrative inconsistencies—from false declarations to duplicate beneficiaries.
Officials discovered cases where a single family had more than two women drawing the same benefit, despite the policy allowing only one eligible woman per household. Others were found availing multiple welfare schemes simultaneously. Some male beneficiaries had registered through clerical errors or mislabelled database entries, while others allegedly manipulated online application systems using falsified Aadhaar-linked credentials.
These revelations point to a broader issue: the lack of integrated, real-time verification between welfare departments.
“The rush to implement welfare before elections often comes at the cost of due diligence,” said a former bureaucrat familiar with the program’s rollout. “Once the money leaves the treasury, recovery becomes an almost impossible task.”
The Cost of Credibility
While the state government has declared all ineligible recipients removed from the rolls, the recovery of disbursed funds—estimated at nearly ₹165 crore—has yet to begin. Officials say that tracing payments through intermediary banks and digital wallets will require months of auditing.
Experts have since urged a detailed independent inquiry into both administrative accountability and digital oversight.
“The scheme’s intent was progressive,” said one policy analyst. “But when welfare becomes a political instrument rather than a structured program, it undermines both credibility and the very people it was meant to help.”
For thousands of genuine beneficiaries, the fallout has been more than just financial. Payments were paused during the verification drive, leaving many women without their expected monthly support.
