Overview
- A confusing Marathi prompt using double negatives led many applicants to incorrectly confirm that a family member was a government employee.
- The Women and Child Welfare Minister directed nearly one lakh Anganwadi workers to physically verify affected cases to correct records and resume payments.
- Automated systems halted disbursements when responses were interpreted as proof of government employment, a mismatch exposed by the fact that Maharashtra has only about 8–9 lakh such employees.
- The verification exercise covers roughly 2.30 crore beneficiaries of the Majhi Ladki Bahin scheme, which pays Rs 1,500 a month and costs the state around Rs 3,700 crore monthly for about 2.25 crore recipients.
- The e-KYC drive follows earlier findings that 14,298 men and more than 1,500 state employees had wrongly received benefits, with recovery proceedings initiated.