BENGALURU: In a fresh escalation of the Gruha Lakshmi payment distribution fiasco, LoP in Assembly R Ashoka has written to the Principal Secretary of the Finance Department seeking an explanation on why thousands of millions of beneficiaries were not paid the stipend amount for February and March 2025.
This letter comes after Women and Child Development Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar’s candid acceptance in the Assembly about week ago that the payments scheduled to be paid to each beneficiary of Rs 2000, had not been paid. This has had the BJP legislators resorting to a walkout in protest and they also accused the government of serious financial mismanagement.
Ashoka wants a full breakdown of what happened to the funds earmarked in the 2024-25 budget for these installments, questioning if fiscal woes or administrative blunders derailed distributions into the 2025-26 fiscal year.
“The money was allocated in the budget, where did it disappear?” Ashoka reportedly thundered in the letter, echoing BJP’s broader critique that the Congress-led Siddaramaiah government’s flagship guarantee schemes are crumbling under poor execution.
He also called for a comprehensive audit of all payouts since the scheme’s launch 2.5 years ago, affecting over 1.2 crore eligible women heads of households across the state.
Launched in 2023 as a cornerstone of Congress’s welfare push, Gruha Lakshmi aims to empower women from below-poverty-line and Antyodaya families with monthly financial aid to boost economic independence and household stability.
Hebbalkar, in her December 18 apology on the Assembly floor, blamed the lapse amount to about Rs 5000 crore on “unintentional oversight” and promised swift rectification, but Ashoka dismissed it as “inadequate,” insisting on accountability to restore trust among beneficiaries.