Lakshmir Bhandar, a social welfare scheme launched by the Mamata Banerjee Government has turned out to be an instant success with more than two million people applying for the benefit in the first few days.
The Lakshmi Bhandar Scheme provides basic income support to the female heads of the families with a monthly allowance of Rs 500 in the general caste category. The women belonging to the SC/ST category would get Rs 1,000 per month.
Announcing the scheme the Chief Minister had earlier said that nearly 1.6 crore would be benefited by the scheme. “The Government has launched this scheme assuming that the average monthly consumption expenditure of a household is Rs 5,249… accordingly the financial support thus provided through this scheme will be able to take care of at least 10% to 20% of the monthly expenses … this will come as a great help.” The application forms were being accepted at the Duarey Sarkar (Government at door steps) camps --- considered as one of the biggest reasons for the Chief Minister’s returning to power in the April-May Assembly elections.Through these area-wise camps the Government is distributing other schemes --- like Kanyashrree, Swasthya Saathi, Rupashree, Krishak Bandhu etc --- too. The camps started on August 16 and continue till September 15.
According to sources in the first two days 29,02,049 people came up with their applications in 18,500 camps. The most sought-after scheme was the Lakshmi Bhandar, sources said.
The most number of applications were received from South 24 Parganas. A total of 4,71,887 applications were received from South 24 Parganas in the first two days for all the schemes.
The scheme is for unemployed women in the working age groups --- that is in the age bracket of 25 to 60 years. “The basic eligibility conditions for this scheme is: only those families who have no tax paying member can apply under this scheme … even if you have one income tax paying member you will not be eligible for this scheme,”| sources said adding general category women who have more than 2 hectare of land also can not apply under this scheme under which the benefit amount will be directly credited into the bank account of the beneficiary.
Women’s who were in permanent jobs in private and government sector cannot take the benefit of this scheme, officials said.
When asked as to how they feel about the benefit Biva Mondal a 50 year-old woman from Sonarpur south of Kolkata said “it is a good scheme provided it comes to you regularly as this Government lacks in honesty.”
Farzana a postgraduate in political science with three children said, “it has nothing to do with party politics … Government is a Government is a Government … they are not doing any favour … they are only returning the tax-payers money to the people … this is a good scheme and I have applied for it … My husband is a school teacher and is not a tax payer so I am eligible for this scheme … However it remains to be seen whether I am allotted the allowance because my husband is a CPI(M) member.”