As Ladki Bahin squeezes Maharashtra welfare schemes, will discontent surface in civic body polls?

Ahead of Diwali last year, Smita Patil received a bag of chana dal, sugar, oil and semolina from her ration shop in Maharashtra’s Sangli under a government scheme – all for just Rs 100.

She used the supplies to make sweets for the festival. “I ended up saving money because I did not have to buy sweets,” she said.

The highly subsidised ration kits were provided by the Maharashtra government as part of the Anandacha Shidha scheme. Started in 2022, the scheme covered 1.7 crore ration-card holders who are above the poverty line but earn less than Rs 1 lakh a year.

But this October, ahead of Diwali, Patil found that the bags of cheap ration were no longer available.

“This year, the government told us there were no funds,” Mirza Nadeem Baig, who runs a ration shop in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, said.

Customers like Patil were left disappointed. “It were not free rations but they were cheap,” she said.

The last time ration kits were sold under the scheme was just before the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2024.

Last month, food and civil supplies minister Chhagan Bhujbal admitted that funds for the scheme were not sanctioned this year because of the fiscal burden of Ladki Bahin Yojana, a direct transfer of Rs 1,500 a month...

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