New Delhi: Three months after the rollout of the ‘Deen Dayal Lado Lakshmi Yojana’ in Haryana, with its eligibility scaled down and the potential beneficiary base dropping from 80 lakh to 10 lakh women, the Nayab Saini cabinet approved yet another dilution of the scheme Thursday. It split the Rs 2,100 monthly benefit for eligible women, locking half in a state-operated deposit account.
The ‘Lado Lakshmi Yojana’ beneficiary base had already shrunk due to the introduction of restrictive age, family income, and residency eligibility, along with exclusion to prevent double-dipping into social security, in the official September 2025 notification of the scheme.
Despite this, at least 10 lakh women have already registered for the benefits within the last two months, according to the Nayab Saini government.
The Thursday amendments also tied the scheme to social development outcomes, thus expanding its ambit. Now, mothers whose children study in government schools and score more than 80 percent in their Class 10 or 12 board exams or achieve grade-level competency under NIPUN Bharat Mission in classes 1 to 4, or mothers who successfully rehabilitate their children from severe or moderate acute malnutrition, as verified by the Women and Child Development Department, are eligible under the scheme. For this additional eligibility criteria, the government has fixed the annual income cap to Rs 1.8 lakh compared to the Rs 1 lakh cap applicable to other beneficiaries. The domicile and residency eligibility criteria will continue to apply to all.
The decision of splitting the funds has drawn sharp criticism from the Opposition, with Congress MP Deepender Hooda calling it “vaada khilafi (breach of promise)”.
Speaking to ThePrint, Hooda Thursday said it was the BJP’s “old habit” to make sweeping promises before polls only to scale them back once in power.
“The BJP is ready to make any promises to win the elections. But once in power, the party conveniently forgets its promise. The BJP promised Rs 2,100 per month under ‘Lado Lakshmi Yojana’ ahead of the 2024 assembly elections. The party took one year for implementation, but once it did, it imposed conditions that ensured only five lakh of the one crore women could qualify,” he said.
“Even now, according to the figures provided by the government Thursday, a mere 10 percent of Haryana’s total women, or 10 lakh, have registered for the scheme. As if this was not enough, the government has now halved the benefit, leaving the rest of the amount to be paid by the government that comes to power after the 2029 elections,” he added.
Women’s rights activist Jagmati Sangwan called the Thursday amendments part of the ruling BJP’s “calculated move” to create pre-poll optics. The maturity capping at five years would mean that the amount would be deliverable just before or during the 2029 election season.
The timing could create a pre-poll windfall, according to Sangwan, the vice president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). “From the amendment, it looks like the government plans to pay the amount deposited in the government-run RD schemes to the beneficiaries ahead of the 2029 assembly elections. The BJP government seems to have taken a cue from Bihar, where women came to vote in large numbers for the ruling alliance after the government paid Rs 10,000 to each ahead of the assembly elections,” Sangwan told The Print.
CM Nayab Saini described Thursday’s amendments as an expansion of the Lado Lakshmi Yojna announced earlier. Addressing a press conference after the cabinet meeting, Saini said that the government has added new categories linked with social development.
Saini justified the deposit of a part (Rs 1000) of the total amount of Rs. 2100 to the government operated RD scheme, saying this will help women in starting a new venture.
Saini further said that in the event of a beneficiary’s death, the amount will be immediately given to her nominee.
When the BJP released its Sankalp Patra (manifesto) ahead of the 2024 assembly elections, it had promised Rs 2,100 per month to “all women of Haryana”—roughly 95.77 lakh female voters, of which about 80 lakh were between 18 and 60 years of age.
But when the scheme was notified on 15 September, its ambit had shrunk dramatically. The notification set a minimum age of 23, a family income cap of Rs 1 lakh per annum as per the Family Information Database Repository (FIDR), and a 15-year residency requirement. It also excluded women receiving benefits under any other social security schemes, including old-age pensions, widow assistance, disability allowances, and a host of other programmes.
The effect was immediate. Instead of 80 lakh women, the scheme was estimated to cover only 20 lakh. When Chief Minister Saini disbursed the first payments in November, just 5.22 lakh women had actually received the money. By Thursday, 10 lakh women had registered—still just 10 percent of the state’s adult female population.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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