Indus Valley Times

Jabalpur,June 11: The Madhya Pradesh government on Saturday transferred Rs 1,000 each to the accounts of 1.25 crore women in the state as it rolled out the ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’, a scheme billed as a game-changer by the BJP in the poll-bound state.

Assembly elections are due by the year-end in the BJP-governed MP.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan pressed a button at an event at the Garrison Ground here to transfer the first dole of the scheme under which beneficiaries will receive Rs 1,000 a month.

Addressing the function, he said that the scheme will empower women socially and economically.

The beneficiaries can withdraw the money from Sunday onwards, said officials.

Chouhann said the government plans to slowly and gradually raise the amount to Rs 3,000 depending on the state’s finances.

“This amount will be gradually increased in the future as per financial arrangements to be done from time to time from the present Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000 gradually. This amount will be increased to Rs 1,250 in the first stage and subsequently to Rs 1,500, Rs 1,750, Rs 2,000, Rs 2,250, Rs 2,500, Rs 2,750 and Rs 3,000,” the chief minister said.

The Yojna was introduced with the aim to empower poor women financially so that they can meet the small household expenditure like spending money to purchase books and ice cream for children and pay transport fare to visit their brothers or the house of their parents.

“Initially, the scheme was meant for women belonging to tribal communities of Baiga, Bhariya, and Shariya. After its success, the scheme is now introduced to cover all poor women,” Chouhan said.

He said married women aged 21 will also get the benefit of this scheme.

In another outreach, the chief minister said the old age pension for women will be raised to Rs 1,000.

With the Ladli Behna scheme, the BJP government in MP would be able to reach out to about half of the 2.6 crore women voters in the state. Women voters outnumber their male peers in at least 18 of the 230 assembly constituencies in MP, as per an estimate. These areas include the tribal-dominated Balaghat, Mandla, Dindori, Alirajpur and Jhabua districts.

After he launched the scheme on his 65th birthday on March 5 in Bhopal, Chouhan has taken part in several Ladli Behna functions across MP in the past two months braving the scorching summer.

Under the scheme, women aged between 23-60 years are eligible to receive Rs 1,000 per month with certain riders, including that they are not income tax payees and their families’ annual income is below Rs 2.5 lakh. A provision of Rs 8,000 crore has been made for the scheme in the state budget.

The number of new women voters in MP has gone up by 2.79 per cent, while it is 2.30 per cent for male voters, officials said. Of the 13.39 lakh new voters, 7.07 lakh are women, as per official records.

The roll-out of the scheme comes ahead of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kickstarting her party’s campaign with a rally in Jabalpur on Monday.

Congress leaders claimed Gandhi had announced Rs 1,500 to eligible women under the ‘Nari Samman Nidhi’ in the run-up to the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls in December 2022 and that Chouhan had copied the move for his ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’.

The last MP Assembly polls held on November 28, 2018, did not give a clear majority to any single party. The Congress emerged as the largest party with 114 seats in the 230-member House, while the BJP won 109 seats.

The Congress formed a coalition government under Kamal Nath, but it fell in March 2020 after several MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia switched over to the BJP, paving the way for Shivraj Singh Chouhan to return as chief minister.

-PTI