Women Empowerment through Lakshmir Bhandar Scheme in West Bengal

Abstract: The Government of West Bengal in February, 2021 introduced Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, however disbursement of benefit was started since September, 2021. Under this scheme, presently, the government of West Bengal provides ₹ 1,200/- every month to women belongs to SC/ST households and ₹ 1,000/- per month to other beneficiaries for the empowerment of unemployed women in the age group of 25-60 years. To assess how far the scheme empowers Bengali unemployed women as well as improve their economic conditions we have surveyed some beneficiaries from different places of Howrah District of West Bengal. The study showed that the scheme prevents a large group of women from entitlement failure by providing a direct cash transfer to them. The prevention from entitlement failure surely implies women empowerment as entitlement failure is the main cause of disempowerment. So, the scheme is very successful for empowerment of Bengali women. The scheme provides some financial autonomy to the beneficiaries as well as enhances importance in the family. Economic empowerment is the most important type of empowerment among the different types of empowerments and plays a vital role for overall empowerment of women. It is also estimated that LB scheme solely reduces poverty by 5.39%. Per capita per month contribution of the LB scheme is Rs. 350.68, which helps to uplift some of the families from BPL to APL. Therefore, the LB scheme successfully empowers women and reduces poverty in West Bengal. Keywords: Lakshmir Bhandar Scheme, Women Empowerment, Poverty, Entitlement Failure, Public Distribution System. Title: Women Empowerment through Lakshmir Bhandar Scheme in West Bengal Author: Dr. Manas Ghose, Arup Ghosh International Journal of Thesis Projects and Dissertations (IJTPD) Vol. 13, Issue 4, October 2025 - December 2025 Page No: 1-31 Research Publish Journals Website: www.researchpublish.com Published date: 04-November-2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17522316 Paper Download Link (Source) https://www.researchpublish.com/papers/women-empowerment-through-lakshmir-bhandar-scheme-in-west-bengal