Mamata expands income support programme to cover 5 lakh more women beneficiaries

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday launched the expanded version of the states basic income support programme for female heads of families called `Lakshmir Bhandar (Lakshmis treasury) which will cover 5 lakh more families from now on, with the click of a button at a mega-business summit being held here. Under the scheme, launched last year, the state government provides Rs 1,000 per month to women heads of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe families, and Rs 500 per month to those belonging to general category. With the expansion, the programme will now cover 1.55 crore families. Banerjee chose to launch the expanded version of the popular scheme at the Bengal Global Business Summit which is being attended by several leading tycoons and CEOs including Adani group chief Gautam Adani, ITC chief Sanjiv Puri, Tata Steels T V Narendran, RPG groups Sanjeev Goenka, Bandhan Banks Chandrashekhar Ghosh. Bajaj Autos Sanjiv Bajaj, Kirloskar groups Vikram Kirloskar and Sunitha Reddy of Apollo Hospital.

The states Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar earlier launched the summit stating the state has enormous potential for growth. Dhankhar said West Bengal “was a land of opportunity” which needs to replicate its earlier success story. Bengal along with Bombay province were the most industrialised provinces of India at the time of independence. “There is a need to combat flight of capital,” the Governor said.

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