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Maharashtra to ‘disqualify’ women with four-wheelers from receiving benefits under flagship Ladki Bahin Yojana

Terming the latest action under the Ladki Bahin scheme “insulting” to women and equating it to cheating them, the Congress and NCP(SP) flayed the Maharashtra government.

maharashtra women ladki bahin yojanaThe Ladki Bahin scheme is believed to be a key factor that helped the BJP-led Mahayuti secure 230 seats out of the 288 in Maharashtra in the recently held Assembly polls. (Express file photo by Amit Chakravarty)

Starting today, the Maharashtra government will identify and ‘disqualify’ women who have availed of benefits under its flagship Ladki Bahin Yojana despite owning a four-wheeler.

The Ladki Bahin scheme offers Rs 1,500 per month to women up to 65 years of age with an annual family income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh. No member of their family should be a government employee, the beneficiary shall not own a four-wheeler or be getting monthly assistance under any other government scheme. According to officials, over 21 lakh women from Pune alone have availed of the benefit.

The Congress and NCP(SP) flayed the government over the issue, terming the latest action “insulting” to women and equating it to cheating them.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Jamsinh Girase, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Pune Zilla Parishad, said, “Disqualifying them is the only action we propose to take. There will be no investigation nor will any fine be levied on them.”

Girase added that officials will also not be going from house to house to the same. “We have asked the RTO to submit a list of such women. We will go by the list. It is likely to take a month,” he said.

Meanwhile, a woman beneficiary from Pimpri-Chinchwad’s Indrayani Nagar area said that even though she owns a four-wheeler, it was bought 10 years ago. “I lost my job more than three years back. I don’t get any salary. But I have a four-wheeler which was bought when I was working 10 years back. What do I do?,” she asked.

To this, Girase said, “As per government directives, if there is a four-wheeler in the name of the individual they stand to be disqualified.”

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Pune city Congress spokesperson Gopal Tiwari termed the government action “inhuman” and “insulting” to women. “Some women might own a four-wheeler. Many bought them before the Covid-19 pandemic. During Covid, several Pune residents lost their jobs. They were not in a position to pay their EMIs either. Some are still struggling to find jobs. If such a person still owns a car but has no job, will the government disqualify them? This only reflects the government’s inhuman and insulting attitude towards women,” he said.

Nationalist Congress Party (SP) spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said, “I want to reiterate that such an action will be like cheating the womenfolk of Maharashtra outright. First, the Mahayuti government lured women’s votes by offering them monthly assistance, now when it has come to power, they want to deprive women of the benefit. This is nothing but cheating in broad daylight.”

The Ladki Bahin scheme is believed to be a key factor that helped the BJP-led Mahayuti secure 230 seats out of the 288 in Maharashtra in the recently held Assembly polls.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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