e-KYC Error Mislabels 24 Lakh Ladki Bahin Beneficiaries, Payments Stopped in Maharashtra

Mumbai: A mistake in the e-KYC process of the Ladki Bahin scheme has led to over 24 lakh women beneficiaries in Maharashtra being wrongly marked as government employees, resulting in the suspension of their monthly financial assistance.

The error, admitted by the Women and Child Welfare Department (WCD), occurred due to a poorly framed question in the e-KYC form. The issue has now forced the government to deploy nearly one lakh anganwadi workers across the state to physically verify the affected beneficiaries and correct the records.

According to a senior WCD official, the problem arose from a question that used a confusing double negative instead of a clear, direct format. The Marathi question read: “Tumchya gharatle koni sarkari nokrit nahi na?” meaning “No one in your family works for the government, right?”

Officials said beneficiaries who should have answered “no” ended up selecting “yes” because of the confusing wording. As a result, the system automatically recorded that someone in their family was a government employee and stopped the monthly payment. Around 24 lakh beneficiaries gave this incorrect response, the official said.

The scale of the error became evident during a review of the data. Maharashtra has only about 8 to 9 lakh government employees, including those in semi-government bodies and corporations, making it clear that the figures flagged by the system were unrealistic. Complaints also started coming in from different parts of the state about the non-receipt of the monthly instalment of 1,500.

State Women and Child Welfare Minister Aditi Tatkare said in a post on X on Tuesday night that anganwadi workers would carry out physical verification of the affected beneficiaries to rectify the mistake and restore payments.

The e-KYC drive covered around 2.30 crore beneficiaries and was meant to ensure that only eligible women receive assistance under the scheme. The deadline for completing the process was December 31, 2025. The verification exercise was initiated after complaints that men were receiving benefits under the scheme and that some government employees had been wrongly enrolled as beneficiaries.

Last month, in a written reply to the state legislative council, Minister Tatkare said the verification drive had exposed serious misuse of the scheme. She informed the House that 14,298 men had received financial assistance meant exclusively for women, and more than 1,500 state government employees were found to have illegally availed of the benefit.

The government has since begun recovery proceedings against those who wrongly received the assistance, the minister said.