Policy Update
Karnavi Shende
Background
Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana is Maharashtra’s large-scale monthly cash-transfer programme for women from lower-income households. Announced in the State Budget in June 2024 and operationalised through a Government Resolution dated 28 June 2024, the programme provides eligible women with ₹1,500 a month through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). Its stated objectives are to strengthen women’s economic independence, improve their health and nutritional status, and enhance their role in household decision-making (Government of Maharashtra, Women and Child Development Department, 2024).
The scheme emerged at a politically significant moment, ahead of the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly election. Yet its policy relevance extends beyond electoral politics. Maharashtra has substantial urban and rural inequalities, a large informal workforce, and many women whose access to independent income remains insecure. A guaranteed transfer, even when modest, can provide women with predictable income, strengthen their ability to meet household needs independently and greater financial security.
Eligibility is restricted to women who are permanent residents of Maharashtra, aged 21–65 years, and belong to families with an annual income below ₹2.5 lakh. Applicants must hold an Aadhaar-linked bank account. The programme covers married, widowed, divorced, abandoned and destitute women, as well as one unmarried woman per family, subject to eligibility conditions. Government employees, income-tax payers, households with certain high-value assets, and women receiving comparable regular benefits under specified schemes are excluded (Government of Maharashtra, Women and Child Development Department, 2024).
At ₹1,500 monthly, the transfer amounts to ₹18,000 annually. For many low-income beneficiaries, this is not a substitute for paid employment or social services. It is, however, a recurring individual entitlement that can reduce short-term cash constraints. The policy is therefore best understood as a social-protection measure with potential gender effects, rather than a complete strategy for women’s economic empowerment.
Functioning
Design and delivery mechanism
The Women and Child Development Department is the nodal department for implementation, while the Finance Department provides budgetary support and district-level authorities manage outreach, scrutiny and enrolment. The scheme uses a DBT model: once an application is approved and bank details are validated, the monthly amount is transferred to the beneficiary’s Aadhaar-linked account (Government of Maharashtra, Women and Child Development Department, 2024).
Applicants may apply through the official portal, ladakibahin.maharashtra.gov.in, or through designated local facilitation channels. The design relies heavily on Aadhaar authentication, bank-account validation and documentation of identity, address and household-income status. These requirements are intended to prevent duplication and diversion. Following a controversy in which approximately 26 lakh beneficiaries were identified as potentially ineligible, the Maharashtra government made Aadhaar-based e-KYC mandatory for beneficiaries (The Hindu, 2025).
Eligibility verification and e-KYC
The scheme’s rapid expansion generated a large verification task. In 2026, the state began more intensive scrutiny of beneficiary records, including Aadhaar-based e-KYC, data matching and examination of exclusion criteria. The purpose was to identify women who no longer met the income, employment or household-status requirements and to prevent transfer to duplicate or ineligible accounts. Media reporting indicates that beneficiary numbers declined after verification exercises, suggesting that the government has treated database cleaning as a continuing administrative process rather than a one-time task (The Hindu, 2026).
Verification can improve the integrity of a cash-transfer programme, but its effect depends on implementation. A beneficiary whose payment is stopped because of an incorrect data match or an unlinked bank account requires a simple, time-bound way to correct the record. Otherwise, fraud control can become exclusion by administrative error.
Payment continuity
The scheme remains active. The Maharashtra government retained it in the 2026–27 budget and confirmed that the monthly ₹1,500 benefit would continue. (The Hindu, 2026).
A government resolution issued in June 2026 provided for disbursement under the scheme during the 2026–27 financial year. A later August 2026 resolution approved ₹344.74 crore for the July 2026 benefit under the Scheduled Caste Special Component Programme, to be transferred through the Budget Distribution System to the Women and Child Development Department for payment to eligible beneficiaries (Government of Maharashtra, Social Justice and Special Assistance Department, 2026).
These orders are important because they show that the scheme is not merely budgeted; funds continue to be administratively released for payment. At the same time, the public record is dispersed across Government Resolutions, departmental allocation orders, budget documents and media reports.
Performance
Scale and beneficiary coverage
Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana is among India’s largest state-level women’s cash-transfer programmes. According to media reporting based on government figures, the scheme reached more than 2 crore women at its peak before verification exercises reduced the number of active recipients. By mid-2026, around 1.5 crore women were reported to remain active beneficiaries, after the removal of women who did not meet eligibility conditions (The Hindu, 2026).
The scale itself is notable. A transfer of ₹1,500 per month to 1.5 crore women implies a monthly payment obligation of roughly ₹2,250 crore, or ₹27,000 crore over a full year, before administrative costs and any fluctuation in beneficiary numbers. This calculation helps explain why the scheme is central to Maharashtra’s fiscal debate.
The programme also has broad geographic relevance: it is designed as a statewide scheme rather than a pilot restricted to specific districts. However, statewide eligibility does not automatically mean uniform access. Women in remote tribal areas, informal settlements and households with unstable documentation may still face greater difficulty with enrolment, e-KYC and banking than better-connected applicants.
Budgetary commitment
The scheme has become one of Maharashtra’s major expenditure items. PRS Legislative Research’s analysis of the Maharashtra Budget 2026–27 records an allocation of ₹26,500 crore for the scheme. This is lower than the ₹38,310 crore revised estimate for 2025–26 and follows actual expenditure of ₹33,237 crore in 2024–25. The 2026–27 allocation represents approximately 3.4% of the state’s total expenditure (PRS Legislative Research, 2026).
The 2026–27 Budget also confirmed that the scheme would continue, with the Chief Minister stating that adequate funds had been provided for eligible women. At the same time, the government linked continued implementation to verification and financial discipline, indicating a shift towards tighter beneficiary authentication rather than an announced withdrawal of the programme (Government of Maharashtra, 2026).
Figure 1: Fiscal estimate for the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, 2024–25 to 2026–27
Source: Compiled by the author from official Government of Maharashtra sources.
Administrative scrutiny
The programme has faced scrutiny over inclusion errors. Data obtained by Hindustan Times through a Right to Information (RTI) application reportedly indicated that ₹9,605 crore had been transferred to approximately 92 lakh beneficiaries later classified as ineligible by June 2026. (Scroll.in, 2026; Hindustan Times, 2026).
Such figures should be interpreted carefully until the full underlying audit record and departmental response are publicly available. Nonetheless, the episode highlights a predictable risk in a rapidly scaled scheme: when enrolment is prioritised, verification may lag behind. The correct response is neither to abandon the transfer nor to rely on opaque deletions. It is to publish transparent criteria, allow beneficiaries to appeal, and distinguish intentional fraud from ordinary documentation or data-matching mistakes.
Figure 2: Fiscal Implications of Beneficiary Verification
Source: Compiled by the author using Government of Maharashtra budget documents.
Impact
The available evidence suggests that Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana has improved beneficiaries’ short-term financial security. An EAC-PM analysis of account-level banking data found that beneficiaries’ month-end bank balances increased by approximately 84%—about ₹6,884—while monthly spending rose by 46%, or ₹1,349. Beneficiaries therefore appeared to use most of the ₹1,500 transfer for consumption while retaining some money as savings (Ghosh & Shagishna, 2026).
The spending data also indicate possible benefits for household welfare. The share of beneficiaries’ ATM expenditure associated with education increased from 18% to 24%, while UPI spending on medical needs rose from 8% to 10%. These findings suggest that the transfer helped women meet education- and health-related expenses, although they do not prove improvements in health or nutrition outcomes (Ghosh & Shagishna, 2026).
The scheme also appears to have strengthened women’s financial position within households. In Maharashtra, male relatives’ spending declined by 49%, while their month-end account balances increased by 23% after women began receiving the transfer. This pattern is consistent with women assuming a greater role in managing household expenditure, although account data cannot establish whether beneficiaries independently controlled every transaction (Ghosh & Shagishna, 2026).
The increased use of ATM and UPI transactions indicates greater engagement with formal financial channels. However, receiving money in a bank account alone does not establish complete financial inclusion; independent account access, digital literacy and control over expenditure require further beneficiary-level research. Overall, the evidence points to improved liquidity, savings and financial resilience, but longer-term effects on women’s decision-making, health and nutrition remain to be established (Ghosh & Shagishna, 2026).
Emerging Issues
Fiscal pressure
The scheme’s financial scale creates a continuing commitment for the state. The ₹26,500 crore 2026–27 allocation is substantial, even after its reduction from the previous year’s revised estimate (PRS Legislative Research, 2026). Fiscal sustainability does not mean cutting welfare automatically; it means making clear choices about targeting, financing and the balance between cash transfers and other public investments.
Inclusion and exclusion errors
Rapid enrolment appears to have produced both risks: ineligible persons entering the database and eligible women facing possible exclusion during verification. The state needs procedures that identify irregular payments without creating arbitrary hardship for poor women whose records contain correctable errors.
Transparency of payment data
The government publishes orders and announcements, but consolidated public data remain limited. An open dashboard should provide district-wise applications, approvals, active beneficiaries, payments issued, successful credits, failed payments, removals, reasons for rejection, grievance disposal and funds released. This would make performance assessment more credible.
Transfer adequacy
₹1,500 a month is meaningful for day-to-day needs, but inflation can reduce its purchasing power. The question is not simply whether the benefit should rise every year; it is whether its value should be reviewed transparently against living costs, food prices and the needs of intended beneficiary groups.
Way Forward
The immediate priorities should be payment continuity, transparent verification and accessible grievance redressal. The government should publish payment schedules and create ward-, village- and block-level support so that women can correct e-KYC, Aadhaar, bank-account and documentation errors without repeated travel. This is important because beneficiaries have reported e-KYC-related technical problems and payment disruptions.
Maharashtra government should publish a monthly public dashboard covering applications, approvals, active beneficiaries, disbursements, payment failures and grievances. It should also release a detailed annual implementation report presenting actual expenditure, verification outcomes and the reasons beneficiaries were removed or restored. Verification procedures should distinguish deliberate fraud from correctable administrative discrepancies.
The government should establish periodic independent social audits and beneficiary surveys to assess whether recipients receive and control the transfer. After strengthening these core systems, beneficiaries can be linked voluntarily with skills training, self-help groups, livelihood opportunities, health services, childcare and financial-literacy support.
Finally, benefit adequacy should be reviewed periodically, with public explanations of how any revision relates to inflation and fiscal capacity. Predictable budget releases and publicly reported payment schedules should protect the scheme from abrupt disruption, while allowing the state to balance its fiscal requirements with sustained investment in health, education, nutrition, infrastructure and employment generation.
References
Ghosh, S. K., & Shagishna, K. (2026). Unconditional women cash transfer programmes in India: Evidence from Maharashtra and Odisha (EAC-PM Working Paper No. EAC-PM/WP/52/2026). Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. https://eacpm.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/CBT-Working-Paper.pdf
Government of Maharashtra, Finance Department. (2025). Budget speech 2025–26. https://finance.maharashtra.gov.in/en/
Government of Maharashtra, Finance Department. (2026). Budget estimates 2026–27. https://finance.maharashtra.gov.in/en/document-category/program-budget-2026-27-part-1/
Government of Maharashtra, Finance Department. (2026). Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2025–26. Government of Maharashtra. https://mahades.maharashtra.gov.in/files/noticeboard/highlights_eng.pdf
Government of Maharashtra, Women and Child Development Department. (2024). Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana. Government of Maharashtra. https://ladakibahin.maharashtra.gov.in/
PRS Legislative Research. (2026). Maharashtra Budget Analysis 2026–27. https://prsindia.org/budgets/states/maharashtra-budget-analysis-2026-27
Scroll.in. (2026, August 22). Maharashtra paid Rs 9,605 crore to ineligible beneficiaries of Ladki Bahin scheme: Report. https://scroll.in/latest/1095195/maharashtra-paid-rs-9605-crore-to-ineligible-beneficiaries-of-ladki-bahin-scheme-report
The Hindu. (2026, July 16). Maharashtra’s Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana explained. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/maharashtra/maharashtras-mukhyamantri-majhi-ladki-bahin-yojana-explained/article71229271.ece
The Indian Express. (2026, March 7). Maharashtra budget: Ladki Bahin outlay cut 26% to ₹26,500 crore in FY27. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/maharashtra-budget-ladki-bahin-outlay-cut-26-per-cent-to-rs-26500-crore-in-fy27-10568962/
The Times of India. (2026, June 11). State government clears ₹344 crore for May Ladki Bahin payout. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/state-govt-clears-344-crore-for-may-ladki-bahin-payout/articleshow/131668145.cms
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Karnavi Shende is a Research and Editorial Intern at IMPRI. She holds a Master’s in Politics, specializing in International Relations, from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her interests include International Relations, Strategic Studies, Public Policy, Gender, and Human Rights, with a focus on policy research and contemporary governance challenges.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author extends sincere gratitude to the reviewers (Gowri Kodali and Raushan Raj) and the IMPRI team for their expert guidance and constructive feedback throughout the process.
Reviewed By
Gowri Kodali and Raushan Raj
DISCLAIMER
All views expressed in the article belong to the author and not necessarily to the organization.
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