State to spend Rs 15K cr/yr for Lakshmir Bhandar

Pritesh Basu| MP | 31 Aug 2021 | Kolkata: Focusing on transferring cash directly to as many people as possible during the Covid-induced financial crisis and to ensure women empowerment, the Mamata Banerjee government is all set to spend a whopping Rs 15,000 crore only for Lakshmir Bhandar scheme every year from its own exchequer to an estimated number of about two crore beneficiaries. 

The expenditure to ensure minimum basic income for women aged between 25 and 60 years comes to around Rs 15,000 crore in a year in the state when the Centre's budget for Women and Child Development is Rs 24,435 crore for the entire nation in 2021-22.

Lakshmir Bhandar scheme — a brainchild of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — has been taken up to ensure a basic minimum income for women in Bengal by directly transferring cash in their bank accounts. The last budget was also focused on social sector development to strengthen the spending capacity of people at the grassroots level to boost economic activity, especially at the time of pandemic when the economy was badly affected. The scheme ensures a minimum income of Rs 500 per month and Rs 1,000 per month for women from the general category and SC/ST category respectively. The scheme has received an overwhelming response with the number of applicants for Lakshmir Bhandar through Duare Sarkar camps already crossing the one crore mark. 

If everything goes as per the assessment of the state government, there will be slightly more than two crore total beneficiaries under the scheme. "In that case, there will be a disbursement of around Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,400 crore in a month once all two crore beneficiaries start receiving the money. 

There will be an expenditure of around Rs 15,000 crore in a year for the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme alone," said a state government officer. There would be an assessment on September 15 on the scheme that will give the exact numbers of people receiving Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 per month. 

The Bengal government has increased the budget of the state Women and Child Development and Social Welfare department by 2.7 times compared to that of last year. The budget has been increased to Rs 16,045.98 crore when the same for the Ministry of Women and Child Development of the BJP-led Union government is Rs 24,435 crore.

(http://www.millenniumpost.in/kolkata/state-to-spend-rs-15k-cryr-for-lakshmir-bhandar-451488)