Mumbai: The number of women who received the last payout of the Mahayuti govt’s flagship Mukhya Mantri Majhi Laadki Bahin Yojana fell by 86 lakh since the introduction of e-KYC verification, officials said.Maharashtra listed over 2.4 crore beneficiaries under the scheme until last year. However, only nearly 1.6 crore beneficiaries received the last payout for the month of December 2025. It was received in mid-January. This was a decline of 86 lakh beneficiaries.The total number of beneficiaries under consideration for the scheme reduced by 55 lakh. Only 1.9 crore women of the over 2.4 crore beneficiaries submitted their e-KYC documents from September 2025 until the deadline of December 31, 2025. Of these, nearly 1.6 crore women whose e-KYC details were accurate received their stipend for December 2025.Corrections within the 1.9 crore forms with e-KYC documents can be undertaken until March 31 through an online portal.A poorly worded question in the e-KYC form, which had a confusing double negative, led to a large number of women filling the form incorrectly. It said, “No one in your family works for the govt, right?” Many without a family member in govt service mistakenly answered in the affirmative instead of marking ‘No’.Beneficiaries also faced a major delay in receiving their January stipend of Rs 1,500 under the scheme — it was not received till February 18. Officials said this was because the funds for the scheme were not yet fully received from the different departments through which it was distributed. “The finance department distributes our funds through several departments. The funds which come to us from the social welfare department tend to get delayed,” said a senior official.Introduced from July 2024, the Laadki Bahin scheme, which provides a monthly stipend of Rs 1,500, is meant for underprivileged women between the ages of 18 and 65, with an annual family income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh, and who are domiciled in the state.The scheme helped power the Mahayuti’s return to govt in the state assembly polls in 2024. However, soon after the polls, govt began scrutinising the scheme to remove ineligible beneficiaries, with the state’s finances facing intense pressure owing to pre-poll sops. Its beneficiaries were scrutinised on the basis of several key criteria, including whether they fit the limit of Rs 2.5 lakh family income per year and whether they remained domiciled in the state. Those with four-wheeler vehicles and govt jobs were also being debarred from the scheme.State govt faced its highest-ever debt of Rs 9.3 lakh crore during the last budget and is likely to tighten its purse strings as it faces its next budget in March.
