Verification of Gruha Lakshmi Not Aimed at Stalling Scheme: Cong MLC
Ashok alleged Congress party treated women as “vote bank”
BENGALURU: The ruling Congress government in Karnataka wants an exercise to weed out ineligible beneficiaries availing Rs 2,000 a month from the State Government through Direct Bank Transfer considering that many beneficiaries are either dead or pay income taxes to be declared “ineligible.” But, the main opposition party-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suspected the exercise is to deprive women in the name of “ineligible” beneficiaries.
"Gruha Lakhsmi" is one of the 5-guarantees announced by the Congress party prior to return in power in Karnataka in May, 2023 and implemented the schemes such as free power upto 200 units a household, free travel for women in State owned buses among others.
Vice-president of the Authority and MLC Dinesh Guligowda clarified as many as 1.24 lakh beneficiaries avail Rs 2,000 a month from the State Government given to combat rise in prices of essential commodities and out of the initially registered beneficiaries, a total of 1.95 lakh have died making them ineligible for them to derived benefit under “Gruha Lakshmi’ scheme. But, owing to technical reasons, the MLC said, even dead are getting Rs 2,000 a month and the aim of the State Government is to stop “misuse’ of the money.
Gowda recalled he made a plea to previous Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to make beneficiaries submit their “Life Certificate” mandatory to the banks. He made it clear he requested Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar to undertake auditing/verification of beneficiaries and eliminate dead and also ineligible women out of the purview of the ‘Gruha Lakhmi” scheme.
Divulging details of the dead “Gruha Lakshmi” beneficiaries, Dinesh Guli Gowda said 15, 850 beneficiaries were found dead as on March 2026, followed by Bengaluru Urban with 14038 deaths, 12, 139 in Tumakuru, 11, 541 in Mysuru among others which makes it about 1,95, 224 till March.
Over the auditing/verification exercise of “Gruha Lakshmi” beneficiaries, Leader of Opposition in Assembly R. Ashok stated “The Congress party announced a female head will get Rs 2,000 a month but now it has started an exercise to identity ineligible beneficiaries and also introduction of bio-metric which is nothing but a harassment.”
Ashok alleged Congress party treated women as “vote bank” and used the women for gaining votes in May, 2023 election and plans to dump them.