PRAMILA PAJVE EAGERLY awaits Rs3,000 that she hopes to receive from the Maharashtra government by the end of August. The 53-year-old, who works as housekeeping staff at a private company, is one of the beneficiaries of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana that aims to pay Rs1,500 per month to eligible women between 21 and 65, whose annual family income is below Rs2.5 lakh.
“Our corporator told my neighbour about the scheme as I was at work, and she asked me to apply,” said Pajve. “But I worry that the scheme will be stopped if there is a change in government. So I will vote for this government to make sure the scheme continues.”
Nisha Naresh Patole from Vasai applied for the scheme after one of her relatives told her about it. Patole, 35, said her experiences in the past with such schemes were not so good, but she hoped this one would work. She, too, wants the Shinde government to continue.
According to an official, around 46 lakh women have enrolled in the scheme, and the government has so far sanctioned Rs46,000 crore. A similar scheme was launched in Madhya Pradesh when Shivraj Singh Chouhan was chief minister, and it benefited the BJP immensely in last year’s assembly polls. “We wanted a similar scheme ahead of the 2019 assembly elections and had readied a plan. But our central leadership was talking about the [freebie] culture, so we did not announce it,” said a Maharashtra BJP leader.
Shinde has also launched the Mukhyamantri Yuva Karya Prashikshan Yojana, known popularly as the ‘Ladka Bhau (dear brother)’ scheme, which provides apprenticeship allowance to the unemployed. Under the scheme, those who passed class 12 are eligible for Rs6,000 per month for apprenticeship, diploma holders could get Rs8,000 and degree holders Rs10,000. The government has earmarked Rs 5,500 crore per year for the scheme, which was announced by Shinde on July 17.
Mahesh Tapase, chief spokesperson for the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, said the scheme showed that the rulers remembered their “brothers and sisters” only at the time of elections. “They have been in power for more than two years now. Why didn’t they announce it earlier? Also, more important, they should explain how they are going to raise money for this,” said Tapase. The overall debt burden of the state, he said, was around Rs8 lakh crore. “What is the government’s economic plan? We have been asking for a white paper on the Maharashtra economy.”
Maharashtra Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said the government announced the two schemes only because it realised that it was going to lose the assembly elections. “There is no economic planning, these are politically motivated schemes. People have been suffering under this government. There is huge unemployment, farmers are facing big problems. The government will wind up this scheme if they return to power,” said Sawant.
Madhav Bhandari, vice president of the Maharashtra BJP, said the opposition tended to criticise every good decision by the government. “The schemes are getting a good response. There is detailed planning behind them. In fact, Congress legislators and district presidents are putting up hoardings about these schemes in their names,” said Bhandari. He alleged that Congress leaders were getting the forms filled from needy women, but instead of submitting those to concerned authorities, they were keeping the forms with them. “The Congress will then claim that the women are not getting any money and the media will highlight that. This is typical Congress strategy,” he said.
Bhandari said the Ladki Bahin scheme would take at least a year to reach every beneficiary because of the limitations of the system. “The servers crashed when the number of registrations crossed 46 lakh, such problems will have to be resolved,” he said.
Political analyst Nitin Birmal said the schemes could help those who were implementing it at the ground level. “Leaders of the Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) are also getting the forms filled by women. For the beneficiaries, it is all about who are helping them and not about the government that introduced the scheme,” he said. “Whoever is helping them will reap the benefits. But it is true that such schemes have worked for the Congress in Karnataka and for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.”