Suvendu govt rolls out Annapurna Yojana in Bengal, over 28L women to benefit

The West Bengal government officially initiated the Annapurna Yojana on Wednesday (June 3), sanctioning Rs 3,000 monthly cash transfers to an initial crowd of more than 28 lakh women. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who inaugurated the sweeping rollout with the Minister of Women, Child Development and Social Welfare, Agnimitra Paul, said the scheme was started with a fresh form-filling exercise, claiming that names deleted under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) were getting benefits.

He said the government is against non-Indians getting the benefits.

The economics of a regime change

The launch operates as both a financial upgrade and a calculated political erasure. The new initiative would eventually replace the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, which previously disbursed a maximum of Rs 1,500 a month to roughly 2.42 crore women. By doubling the payout immediately following this year's assembly election victory, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is aggressively attempting to overwrite the state's established voter loyalties.

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Framing the rollout as a fulfilled contract with the electorate, Adhikari emphasised the speed of execution. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's guarantee and the double-engine government's commitment have ensured that the promise to provide the aid of Rs 3,000 has been implemented," he stated.

Outdated databases

However, the financial expansion is gated by a severe administrative filter. Rather than simply using the existing 2.42 crore database, the new administration enforced a ground-up re-verification. Adhikari justified the hard reset by pointing to systemic irregularities embedded within the old registry, asserting that the government decided to re-verify beneficiaries after discovering that many people whose names had been permanently deleted from electoral rolls following the SIR continued to draw state funds.

Consequently, the new welfare gateway enforces a strict citizenship mandate, explicitly barring undocumented residents, but it makes specific exceptions to include Hindu refugees from Bangladesh applying for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, as well as people whose cases are still being appealed in court.

A logistical challenge

To minimise public frustration during the mass audits, the state is offering multiple ways to enrol in the scheme over the next three months. Residents can apply online or in person at block development offices, municipal hubs, and designated government centres.

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Acknowledging the logistical strain of a total system reset, Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal announced that dedicated teams would go door to door to complete paperwork, backed by a newly deployed central grievance portal and a dedicated helpline (82820-82820).

The move is designed to project absolute bureaucratic transparency as the new government systemically replaces the remnants of the previous regime with a highly monitored, data-verified architecture.