Two women lost consciousness in a near-stampede situation outside a bank in Nandurbar district as over 100 people gathered to complete the e-KYC process for the Maharashtra government’s “Majhi Ladki Bahin” scheme on Friday.
The incident occurred around 1 PM outside a State Bank of India branch in Dhadgaon, where a large crowd, mostly women, had assembled since the morning to submit documents for the scheme, reports PTI.
The situation turned chaotic in the afternoon, leading to the two women collapsing. Police rushed to the scene and arranged for medical treatment for the affected people.
Many of the people in the crowd had travelled from nearby tribal villages, covering distances of 20 to 30 kilometres to reach Dhadgaon.
The “Majhi Ladki Bahin” scheme offers monthly financial assistance of Rs 1,500 to married, divorced, and destitute women aged 21 to 60, provided their family income does not exceed Rs 2.5 lakh annually.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier said that more than one crore eligible women in the state will start getting Rs 1,500 financial assistance per month under the state government scheme, that was launched on August 17.
He had claimed that some eligible women already received Rs 3,000 as the installment for two months during the scheme’s trial run.
The scheme, featured in the Maharashtra government’s supplementary budget, is expected to cost the state Rs 46,000 crore annually.
This is a flagship scheme of the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government on the lines of the ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’ in Madhya Pradesh introduced by the previous Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led dispensation.
Assembly elections in Maharashtra will likely be held in October or November. Although the Election Commission of India announced the poll dates for Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, it didn’t announce the election dates for Maharashtra.