Mumbai will be pothole free in 2-3 years: Eknath Shinde
Shinde said the MahaYuti government has prepared a detailed infrastructure roadmap for Mumbai and Maharashtra.
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The Print
3 hours ago
- The Print
Rakhi gift before polls, now strain on coffers, how Mahayuti's Ladki Bahin scheme has undergone a squeeze
But since July last year, she's got some relief—an additional Rs 1,500 a month under the Maharashtra government's Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, launched just ahead of Raksha Bandhan. The monthly stipend was promoted as a 'gift from a brother to the sisters in the state'. As a result, her income has dropped while prices of basic commodities keep rising, making it difficult for her to make ends meet. Mumbai: Shaila Jaiswal, a domestic worker in Mumbai, used to juggle work in five houses before the COVID-19 pandemic. But post-pandemic, the number has dwindled to just two. 'It is not much. However, I still have some money to take care of my expenses. And that is why when the government announced the scheme, I immediately applied for it,' said Shaila. Shaila is not the only one. Millions of lower-income women across Maharashtra stood in long queues to apply for the direct benefit transfer scheme, which helped the Mahayuti coalition win a historic mandate in the assembly elections last November. However, after the election, the Mahayuti government—comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena (Shinde) and Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)—has tightened scrutiny of the scheme after it found that many women who did not meet the eligibility criteria were on the list. The government is vetting all data and striking ineligible women off the list of beneficiaries while reducing the budgetary allocation for the scheme. Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who also holds the finance ministry portfolio, admitted to 'mistakes' in distributing the financial assistance to all women applicants even before checking their eligibility. 'We made a mistake of giving the financial benefit to all women (applicants). We had little time to scrutinise the applications and identify the ineligible ones. At that time, elections were supposed to be announced in two to three months,' he said. 'When the scheme was unveiled, the government had appealed that only eligible women apply but that didn't happen. A scrutiny is being conducted. Only the needy women will get the monthly payout,' he added. The scheme, modelled on Madhya Pradesh's Ladli Bahna programme, was approved on 28 June last year and aimed at women between the ages of 21 and 65 whose family annual income was below Rs 2.5 lakh. But since December, the Mahayuti government has undertaken a massive scrutiny of the applicants, leading to a drop in the number of beneficiaries and drawing strong criticism from the Opposition. Congress senior leader Vijay Wadettiwar told ThePrint that Mahayuti had cheated the people of the state. 'They did this for the sake of votes. This is cheating the voters. They bought votes with government money. So now what is the point of regretting or admitting the mistakes?' he said. Also Read: Solo or together? The big question for Maharashtra alliances this BMC poll season Ladki Bahin scheme The Mahayuti government approved the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana in the cabinet after its monumental losses in the Lok Sabha election in June last year, when it won only 17 of 48 parliamentary seats. In the July 2024 budget, the government allocated Rs 46,000 crore for the scheme, which was seen as a potential game-changer for the then-upcoming assembly elections. The government at the time said the scheme aimed 'to ensure economic independence of women in the state, improve their health and nutrition, and strengthen their decisive role in the family'. The applicants started receiving the benefits of the scheme from July, when it was passed in the budget. Despite strict eligibility criteria, the government initially began providing benefits to all applicants. In the first phase, over one crore women benefited from the scheme. The then chief minister, Eknath Shinde, said the ambit of the scheme would be increased to about 2.5 crore women. According to the government, in October, the number of beneficiaries was about 2.63 crore women. This scheme is believed to have given the much-needed swing in favour of the Mahayuti government. The scheme's criteria were clear. Women whose family income was more than Rs 2.5 lakh, or if anyone in their family was paying income tax, were not eligible. Besides, family members of those working with the government or drawing a pension after retirement were disqualified. Another condition was that any woman already receiving benefits of Rs 1,500 or above from other government schemes would not qualify. Also, those who owned four-wheelers in their families were considered ineligible. The twists and turns in the scheme During the election campaign, Shinde had even announced that women could get double the amount if they voted Mahayuti back to power in the assembly polls. In the manifesto, the Mahayuti government said that if voted to power, women would get Rs 2,100 instead of Rs 1,500 per month. Concerns were raised about whether the state treasury had the funds to foot the additional bill but then Finance Minister Pawar said the calculations were sound and there was no need to worry. However, after the election, the situation began to change. The revised amount still hasn't been disbursed and the government didn't mention Rs 2,100 in its first budget after the election either. If anything, this year's budget slashed the allocation for the scheme to Rs 36,000 crore from Rs 46,000 crore in the July 2024 budget. The state government justified the move, saying that the actual expenditure on the scheme from July 2024 was lower than anticipated at Rs 33,232 crore. 'It's important to maintain financial discipline in the budget, and that has been considered … When we made estimates for the budget for Ladki Bahin last time, we realised the actual spend was less than our estimates. So, this time, we have based our estimates on the actual spend. And if you notice, it is more than the actual spend of last year,' Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said at a press conference after the budget speech. Currently, the government spends Rs 3,500-4,000 crore a month on this scheme. But opposition leader Wadettiwar alleged the scrutiny was being carried out because the state was facing a financial crunch. Currently, Maharashtra is saddled with a debt of nearly Rs 10 lakh crore. 'I feel they do not have the bandwidth and capability to handle this scheme and hence they are cutting down the funds or removing people from this scheme. Then why did you bring this scheme if you can't fund it?' Wadettiwar said. Also Read: Not Noddy, Tom & Pingu, but 'Adu, Sanju & Teju'—BJP wants Mumbaikar penguins to have Marathi names Weeding out the ineligibles After coming back to power, the state government announced that it would scrutinise the beneficiaries as it felt that many ineligible women had received the benefit. Finance Minister Pawar admitted that the scrutiny was not done earlier because of the elections. To this, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, earlier this week while speaking to the media in Nashik, demanded Pawar's resignation. 'This fraud is done through the finance department. Who disbursed the money? Who looted the state money? Not ladki bahin but ladke bhau (beloved brothers, referring to the leaders) cheated the state. You let government employees take advantage of this scheme and you did not do the scrutiny earlier because you wanted votes,' he said. Women and Child Development Minister Aditi Tatkare told ThePrint that the scrutiny was not done earlier because of the model code of conduct from October before the election. And once it was lifted in December, her department initiated this process. 'This is not new and unique. For any scheme, a scrutiny is done. In fact, it was our department that initiated this process. No one told us. Initially, a few women themselves came forward and returned the money as they were either beneficiaries of some other schemes or they shifted out of the state or for some other reason,' Tatkare said. According to the minister, women are being dropped from the scheme for many reasons. Some were eligible when the scheme was launched but later married into neighbouring states. This is especially true for districts bordering Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Gujarat, she said. Others were removed due to death or a change in employment status such as getting a government job, which put them outside the income limit. 'One thing that is good about this scrutiny is the Aadhaar linkage. It is mandatory that women do their Aadhaar linkage and because of this, 50 lakh women got their Aadhaar linked to bank accounts so they easily get benefits from other schemes too,' Tatkare said. The women and child development department is in talks with different departments to identify ineligible candidates and is in the process of drawing up a list of women beneficiaries under other schemes like the Namo Shetkari Samman Yojana and Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana. These women will be dropped from the scheme. Tatkare said they are awaiting a list from the Income Tax Department to verify the family income of beneficiaries. Data for about 6 lakh women is expected, and those found to be income tax payers will be dropped from the beneficiary list. She also said that in January, officials reviewed records of 2 lakh out of 8 lakh women, and found over 2,200 women were government employees. All of them were removed from the scheme. The transport department is also expected to check whether beneficiaries have four-wheelers or not. She says they hope to receive the date by next month. Tatkare rejected opposition claims that the government rolled out the scheme only to get votes in the election and would now scrap the plan. 'This is a misconception. The scheme will not be scrapped, nor will the money be taken back from those ineligible women. The data will just be cleaned and updated,' Tatkare said. After the government vetted the data, the number of beneficiaries dropped to 2.52 crore by February and by May, it was 2.47 crore. Some women were weeded out because they were a part of other schemes. For instance, some 7.7 lakh women were getting Rs 1,000 a month under the Namo Shetkari scheme. And so the government decided to give them only Rs 500 under the Ladki Bahin scheme. 'These reductions are because of the overlap with other welfare schemes,' Tatkare said. Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said the government was cheating women voters. 'Recently, the state govt took a U-turn on its farm loan waiver promise, and now by reducing the Ladki Bahin dole for 8 lakh beneficiaries, it has betrayed the people of the state,' he said. Upset allies However, even Tatkare's cabinet colleagues are upset with her department. Last month, the state government diverted some of the funds from the tribal development department (about Rs 335 crore) and the social justice department (Rs 410 crore) to the Ladki Bahin scheme. This was the third transfer this year to the scheme. The opposition claimed the government took the step because it was facing a financial crunch. NCP(SP) leader Rohit Pawar told the media last week that the government should find other ways to fund the scheme and not divert funds from the social justice and tribal departments. Wadettiwar also questioned the state government's decision to cut funding from existing welfare schemes to finance the Ladki Bahin programme, asking why support for the scheme should come at the cost of another. It wasn't just the opposition, but Shiv Sena leader and social justice minister Sanjay Shirsat also saw red over this diversion of funds. 'My department's around Rs 425 crore is being redirected. Even earlier, around Rs 7,000 crore was cut from my department and I was not even made aware of this. But if there is no need for the social justice department or nobody wants to give funds to this department, then you can close this department. Why do you need this department anyway?' Shirsat asked at a press conference. The social justice department takes care of welfare schemes for Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, and many other marginalised castes. 'This department already faces a fund crunch and one cannot take funds out of this department as it is a mandatory department. I don't know if this is an injustice to us. I feel this is not lawful but the finance department acts in a high-handed manner. This is not right. I oppose this. There is a limit to how much I can tolerate,' Shirsat said. ThePrint reached out to the finance department for a comment. However, the officials refused to talk. But Tatkare defended the move, saying the funds were not taken from the department's actual allocation but from additional allocations. 'I don't understand why there is a misunderstanding over this? We have not touched the actual funds from the department. Social justice and tribal development were allocated an extra 38 percent and 41 percent of funds during the budget. We have taken some funds from the extra allocation. Anyway, Ladki Bahin is a cabinet decision and everyone supported it back then. So I don't see why anyone would be upset over this,' said Tatkare. However, Shirsat acknowledged the financial burden on the state, saying the Rs 1,500 payment could not be increased to Rs 2,100 a month. 'This is a fact which needs to be accepted. But that doesn't mean it will be scrapped,' he said. Tatkare also confirmed to ThePrint that the government hadn't taken a decision yet on whether or when the amount would be raised to Rs 2,100. Meanwhile, with the government busy scrutinising the list of beneficiaries, more and more women who don't fit the scheme's eligibility criteria will be dropped from the list. And women like Shaila Jaiswal, who will cross the age limit of 65 next year, will have to find other sources of income. 'I will now have to register myself in other welfare schemes from next year. I will not get any additional money, which, though not enough, is still something better than nothing,' she said. (Edited by Sugita Katyal) Also Read: How Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi e-way took shape with Fadnavis & Shinde taking turns in driver's seat
Hindustan Times
9 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Excise duty on liquor goes up by over 50%, retail prices to rise from 14% to 60%
MUMBAI: The cash-strapped Maharashtra government on Tuesday increased the state excise duty on Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) by over 50%, which will lead to a significant increase in retail prices by over 60%. It has also increased the duty on country liquor and imported premium liquor, which will hike their retail prices by 14% and over 25% respectively. The excise duty on beer and wine has not been increased. The government expects the whopping hike to increase its revenue to ₹57,000 crore, up ₹14,000 crore from the ₹43,620 crore collected in FY 2024-25. It expects 10% of the estimated revenue receipts of ₹5.60 lakh crore for the financial year 2025-26 to come from this. While tapping sources of revenue that would enable the drained exchequer to bear the burden of populist schemes like Ladki Bahin and sops for farmers and other communities, the Mahayuti government in January constituted a committee headed by then additional chief secretary Valsa Nair to recommend steps to increase revenue from liquor sales. The committee submitted its report in April this year, and the state cabinet gave its assent to this on Tuesday. Based on the recommendations of the committee, IMFL will now attract four and a half times excise duty on the manufacturing cost instead of the existing three times. 'This will vary based on the manufacturing price but could lead to a huge hike of over 60% in retail prices,' said an excise department official. The cost of IMFL currently ranges between ₹120 and ₹150 for 180 ml, which will now go up to a minimum of ₹205. Premium brands will cost a minimum of ₹360 for 180 ml as against their current rate ranging between ₹210 and ₹330. The price of 180-ml bottles of country liquor has gone up to ₹80 from the current price of ₹70. Beer and wine have been exempted from the excise duty hike. Officials said the retail price of beer, which has a lesser percentage of alcohol compared to hard liquor, is among the highest in the country and was thus exempted. In the case of wine, it is the policy of the state to promote wine since a significant chunk of the country's wineries are in Maharashtra and a significant number of farmers who supply grapes for these wineries are also based here. The government has also introduced a new category called Maharashtra-made liquor (MML), which will also be exempted from the hike. MML brands, made from grains, will cost a minimum of ₹148 for 180 ml, a price that has been strategically kept in the existing price range of IMFL to help MML capture the IMFL market. An official from the excise department said that the new category had been introduced to revive the 70 manufacturing units that manufacture IMFL from molasses and grains. 'Currently 22 of the 70 licenced units are entirely defunct while 16 do no manufacturing and renew their licence only for permission to sell liquor through their shops,' he said. 'The remaining 32 are actually manufacturing the liquor, and 10 of these produce 70% of the IMFL manufactured in the state.' The official added that distilleries using molasses would have to shift to making grain-based liquor in order to get the benefit of the exemption. The reason for this, he alleged, was that most of the grain-based manufacturing units are owned by politicians and the decision was taken to benefit them. The duty hike on IMFL brands has come after 14 years. According to officials, the excise duty levied is still lower than other neighbouring states like Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. 'The committee's recommendations were based on the study of the rates in other states,' said an officer. Another officer said that the hike in duty on country liquor brands was minimal since a greater increase and higher price would lead to the consumption of illicit liquor. 'It is also because the last hike was done in 2022,' he said. The cabinet has also allowed owners of bars to rent out permit room licences for alcohol by paying 10% of the licence fee.
Time of India
10 hours ago
- Time of India
‘Urban Naxal' is a fictitious term coined by BJP to gain traction: Maha Cong prez
Nagpur: Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said the term "Urban Naxal" is one conjured up by BJP as part of its propaganda and added there is "no such thing as Urban Naxal". During last year's polls, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had alleged that Congress neta Rahul Gandhi is surrounded by Urban Naxals. Talking to TOI, Sapkal said, "Who is an Urban Naxal? Do they carry weapons like Maoists? The truth is no such thing exists. BJP conjures up such buzzwords only to gain electoral traction. The saffron party indulges in such things when it wants to divert attention from real issues." Fadnavis' statement made last year on Gandhi and urban naxals created a national stir, with both national parties engaging in a prolonged verbal duel. Talking about the upcoming local body polls, Sapkal said BJP's "false promises" will come to haunt it. One such issue, Sapkal pointed out, is the Mahayuti's 'Ladki Bahin' scheme. He criticised the ruling alliance for failing to deliver on their promise of increasing the monthly financial aid for women from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,100. "They started Rs 1,500 per month dole for women and promised a hike it up to Rs 2,100 if voted to power," Sapkal noted, adding the increased amount has yet to be implemented. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo He further alleged the govt is attempting to reduce the number of beneficiaries, with even the existing Rs 1,500 being withdrawn in some cases. Sapkal warned this failure to fulfil promises could have significant repercussions for the BJP-led Mahayuti in upcoming elections, including local body polls and major elections in 2029. "Instead of Ladki Bahin, we now have angry bahins. Our sisters have been fooled by BJP-led Mahayuti," he remarked, highlighting the growing discontent among women who feel let down by the govt's unfulfilled promises. In addition to the Ladki Bahin scheme, Sapkal criticised the govt's handling of the agricultural sector, particularly in providing relief to farmers affected by unseasonal rains. "Many farmers are still facing financial distress. It is very sad," he said, emphasising the need for immediate action to support those who lost their crops and struggling to make ends meet. Sapkal said there is growing unrest in the public because of corruption in Mahayuti. "Many public projects are being announced without any logic. It seems infrastructure projects are more for the benefit of contractors rather than the people, who have now seen through this facade," said Sapkal.
