Others have been excluded as a result of they exceeded the revenue or age limits, belonged to households with authorities staff, have been already receiving cash by one other welfare scheme or got here from households the place a couple of individual was claiming the profit.
Authorities knowledge additionally confirmed almost 29,000 males and about 8,000 authorities staff had acquired funds. Tatkare stated the state was recovering this cash however didn’t say how a lot had been repaid.
The scrutiny has renewed questions on the advantages – and long-term prices – of cash-transfer programmes.
Neeraj Hatekar, a welfare economist, says Ladki Bahin has made an actual distinction to ladies with low and irregular incomes.
Drawing on labour-force knowledge, he says ladies in Maharashtra earn about 300 rupees a day on common. Even when they get work for 20 days a month, they earn solely 6,000-7,000 rupees. In opposition to that, he says, the scheme’s 1,500-rupee month-to-month cost “is a giant quantity”.
However he argues the identical wants might be addressed by investing extra in stronger public providers resembling healthcare, training, childcare centres and transport, so that girls do not need to spend as a lot on them.
Economist Ajit Ranade says governments should additionally weigh the fiscal prices. “You may divert funds to those schemes and win an election,” he says. “However what concerning the long-term injury [to the state’s finances]? That’s by no means audited.”
The audit might form how the scheme is run in future. For girls like Bawaskar, nevertheless, the Ladki Bahin scheme has already modified their lives.
The cash has not lifted her household out of poverty. However it has given her one thing she by no means had earlier than: cash deposited into an account in her personal title.
“It is cash of my very own,” she says. “That is what issues to me.”
