Over 12,900 govt employees took Ladki Bahin benefits despite exclusion norms

The WCD department, in the RTI response said, “Instructions have been issued to concerned offices to initiate action against such employees for wrongfully availing benefits.”

With this latest figure, the total number of ineligible beneficiaries under the scheme has now crossed one lakh.

The disclosure builds on an earlier RTI report published by The Indian Express in October, which had revealed that 12,431 men and 77,980 ineligible women (aggregating to over 90,000 illegal beneficiaries) had received benefits under the scheme, resulting in wrongful disbursal of at least Rs 164.52 crore.

However, the latest RTI reply received on December 16 this year reveals that the figure is substantially higher and has increased three-fold to 12,915, pointing to deeper verification failures in the implementation of the flagship welfare programme.

The WCD Department has acknowledged that benefits taken by government employees were irregular and has formally communicated with relevant departments regarding possible recovery and disciplinary action. The department, however, did not provide details on recovery proceedings with regards to previous instances of ineligible women beneficiaries.

The RTI reply also reiterates that men were paid benefits from July 2024 to July 2025, after which payments were stopped. Similarly, government employees continued to receive benefits until they were identified during subsequent verification exercises.

The scheme, launched in June 2024, provides Rs 1,500 per month to women aged 21–65 years from families earning less than Rs 2.5 lakh annually. It was rolled out months ahead of the Assembly elections and drew criticism from the Opposition, which labelled it a pre-election populist measure.

Despite admitting largescale inclusion errors, the WCD Department has said that reason-wise, department-wise or district-wise compiled data on ineligible beneficiaries and recoveries is not available. Eligibility and disqualification decisions were taken based on government resolutions issued on June 28, September 3 and September 12, 2024, it said.

In the October RTI response, the department had admitted that no recovery process had been initiated at that stage, even as verification had uncovered misrepresentation of income, multiple beneficiaries within households, and government employees claiming benefits despite being ineligible.

Verification still underway

On August 25, Women and Child Development Minister Aditi Tatkare had stated on X that preliminary data suggested nearly 26 lakh beneficiaries may not meet eligibility criteria, following which district-level physical verification was initiated. Disbursal to 26.34 lakh suspect accounts was later suspended pending verification.

Officials had then described the irregularities as “the tip of the iceberg,” warning that numbers could rise further as scrutiny continued.

A statewide e-KYC verification drive has since been launched to prevent further misuse.

The state government has made the e-KYC process mandatory for eligible women under this scheme, with a deadline set for December 31.

Currently, nearly 2.4 crore women receive benefits under the Ladki Bahin Yojana, costing the state exchequer nearly Rs 3,700 crore per month.

The state government has made a budgetary allocation of Rs 36,000 crore for the scheme.