Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said Lakshmir Bhandar, a scheme she had promised the women of Bengal ahead of Assembly polls, would be launched on September 1, her announcement marking the formal start of one of the state’s biggest direct benefit transfer schemes.
“We had promised the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme ahead of the elections. The beneficiaries will start getting money under the scheme from September 1,” said the chief minister after a cabinet meeting at Nabanna on Thursday.
Under the scheme, women aged between 25 and 60 years from families under general castes would get Rs 500 and women from SC and ST families Rs 1,000 a month. Only working women with jobs of a permanent nature and pensioners would be exempt.
The state government has primarily estimated 1.6 crore beneficiaries. A sum of Rs 12,000 crore would be spent for the project annually.
“We will launch the Duare Sarkar programme from August 16 and it will continue till September 15. All eligible beneficiaries for Lakshmir Bhandar scheme can register their names under it through Duare Sarkar camps,” Mamata said.
Bureaucrats contacted by this paper said the scheme was “unique” but also costly for a state with strained finances.
“In a situation when income opportunities for a large section of the rural populace have shrunk in the past one-and-a-half years, the money will definitely boost the rural economy. Direct cash benefit schemes always create more demand in rural areas. The MGNREGS has already given a boost to the economy even in remote areas,” said a source.
Other officials, however, expressed scepticism on whether the state government would manage to strike a balance between development and welfare schemes, considering the state's strained financial condition amid the ongoing pandemic.
“The scheme (Lakshmir Bhandar) will require Rs 12,000 crore a year, equivalent to annual budgets of three large departments--PWD, PHE and irrigation. I hope development projects don’t take a backseat because of this scheme,” said a bureaucrat.
Departments such as PWD, PHE and irrigation have been barred from taking up new projects worth over Rs 1.5 crore. In case of other departments, schemes worth over Rs 30 lakh were not being allowed, said a senior official.
However, sources in Nabanna said they expect the state’s revenue generation to go up from August with Covid curbs getting eased.
“It is expected that once we start generating our own revenue of Rs 4,500 crore every month, we will be able to shoulder the burden to some extent. If the Centre clears the backlog of nearly Rs 50,000 crore under various schemes, the state will not face any major problem,” said an official.
