NEW DELHI: Seventy-five lakh women across Bihar have received Rs 10,000 each in their bank accounts under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana — a one-time working capital grant to set up small businesses. The scheme promises up to Rs 2 lakh in installments in later phases, depending on how the ventures perform.
For a poor state where the inflation-adjusted per capita income is about Rs 3,000 a month, the infusion is no small sum. Bihar had nearly 5 crore women in the 2011 Census, a number now projected at around 6.4 crore.
The virtual launch by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, turned into more than a policy rollout. Women beneficiaries addressed him as “Bhaiya”, and spoke of how access to capital, housing, healthcare, gas cylinders, and electricity had reshaped their daily lives.
Modi, visibly moved, urged them to take the message further: “Go to at least one area in your village and tell others about the initiatives.”
Critics, however, have derided such schemes as “rewadi culture” — freebies handed out for votes.
It is pertinent to mention that Bihar spends much more than it earns through taxes and revenues, and the gap is among the widest in the country when measured against the state’s economy.
The NDA, for its part, insists the scheme is not charity but empowerment, designed to seed entrepreneurship and self-reliance.
The political playbook is familiar. In June 2023, just four months before polls in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP launched the Ladli Behna Yojana, depositing Rs 1,000 each into the accounts of about 1.25 crore women. When results came, the BJP not only returned to power but bagged 163 of 230 seats — a gain of 54 from 2018. The outcome also completely sealed the political fate of Congress veteran Kamal Nath and Digvijaya singh to some extent. A similar strategy later played out in Maharashtra, again to the BJP’s advantage.
For the NDA, led by the JD(U) and BJP, Bihar 2025 is among the toughest contests in recent memory. The women’s employment grant may well be the intervention the alliance is banking on to swing the tide.
