With 11.8L Lakhpati Didis, Bengal ranks third behind Andhra, Bihar
Times of India | 5 December 2024
123 Kolkata: Over 11.8 lakh women from Bengal have registered with the Lakhpati Didi Yojana — Centre's flagship programme for women's empowerment and livelihood assistance — till Oct, said Union minister of state for rural development Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Bengal, with 11,81,852 registrations, stands third behind Andhra Pradesh (14.8 lakh) and Bihar (13.4 lakh). The minister said this scheme had improved women's income and savings while reducing their dependence on informal loans.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the scheme during his Independence Day speech last year. It offers financial instruments to increase women's access to credit, promote financial inclusion, and encourage entrepreneurship.
A Lakhpati Didi is a member of a self-help group with an annual household income exceeding Rs 1 lakh. At first, Centre had set a target of registering 6 lakh Lakhpati Didis in Bengal during 2023-24. It revised the target for 2024-25 to 28.4 lakh.
Before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Modi had said during his political rallies in Bengal that out of 10 crore women working with self-help groups in the nation, 1.25 crore were from the state. He said Rs 90,000 crore was disbursed to these women in the past decade. BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya said, "This shows the Centre's resolve towards women empowerment in the state. It also shows that women have their faith in the centre. However, we have to check if Trinamool has fudged the numbers and got the benefits of the scheme for ghost beneficiaries or not."