Lakshmir Bhandar Prakalpa

What is Lakshmir Bhandar Prakalpa?

Lakshmir Bhandar Prakalpa, written in Bengali as Lakshmir Bhandar and often searched as Laxmi Bhandar, was the flagship monthly cash transfer of the Government of West Bengal for adult women. Lakshmir Bhandar was run by the Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare and paid a fixed sum every month, by Direct Benefit Transfer, into a bank account held in the woman's own name.

Lakshmir Bhandar was launched in 2021 and grew into one of the largest state-funded women's income support programmes in India, with more than two crore women on its rolls. The design was deliberately simple. There was no requirement to be poor by a formal poverty line, no requirement to work, and no requirement to spend the money on anything in particular. Any adult woman of the state within the age band, whose household had no salaried or pensioned government member, could apply.

The status has changed. Following the 2026 West Bengal assembly election, the state government issued a notification in May 2026 introducing Annapurna Yojana, which took effect from 1 June 2026 and replaced Lakshmir Bhandar as the state's women's cash transfer. The West Bengal state portal at wb.gov.in now lists Annapurna Yojana in its scheme directory; Lakshmir Bhandar no longer appears there. Payments to existing women did not stop. Instead, the state said existing Lakshmir Bhandar beneficiaries would be migrated automatically to the new scheme, at the higher rate of Rs 3,000 a month, into the same Aadhaar-linked bank account.

This guide therefore covers two things: what Lakshmir Bhandar was and how it worked, and what a beneficiary or a new applicant should do now.

How much did Lakshmir Bhandar pay?

Lakshmir Bhandar always paid two rates, a higher one for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women and a lower one for everyone else. The rates were revised upwards twice.

The last Lakshmir Bhandar revision added Rs 500 to both slabs. Annapurna Yojana removes the category distinction altogether and pays a single flat Rs 3,000 per month, which works out to Rs 36,000 a year. According to the West Bengal state portal's Annapurna Yojana page, "each eligible beneficiary is entitled to receive Rs. 3,000 per month."

Payment in both schemes is monthly, by Direct Benefit Transfer, with no cash handling at any stage.

Who was eligible for Lakshmir Bhandar, and who is eligible now?

The eligibility rules carried over almost unchanged from Lakshmir Bhandar into Annapurna Yojana, which makes them worth reading as one list.

You can be enrolled if:

• You are a woman and a resident of West Bengal.
• You are aged 25 to 60 years.
• Your household has no member drawing a regular government salary or pension.
• You are not an income tax payer.
• You hold a bank account in your own name that is linked to your Aadhaar.

You are not eligible and cannot apply if:

• You are a permanent or retired employee of the central government, the state government, a statutory body, a government undertaking, a panchayat, a municipal corporation, a municipality or any other local body.
• You are teaching or non-teaching staff of a government-aided educational institution.
• You receive a regular salary or pension from a government institution.
• You are an income tax payer.
• You are below 25 or above 60 years of age.
• You are not a resident of West Bengal.

Lakshmir Bhandar treated the Swasthya Sathi card as the household identifier. A woman who did not yet hold one was registered provisionally, and her Swasthya Sathi enrolment was completed alongside. Annapurna Yojana instead keys the application to the EPIC voter card and Aadhaar, as listed on the state portal.

What documents are needed?

How to apply for the West Bengal women's monthly grant

Fresh Lakshmir Bhandar applications are no longer accepted. A woman who is not already on the rolls should apply under Annapurna Yojana instead, by either route below.

1. Check that you meet the age and exclusion rules first, a woman aged 25 to 60, resident in West Bengal, with no government salary or pension in the household and no income tax liability.
2. Get your bank account Aadhaar-seeded. The payment is a Direct Benefit Transfer, so an account that is not seeded will simply fail. Seeding can be done through your bank branch or through the NPCI Bharat Aadhaar Seeding Enabler service.
3. Apply online at socialregistry.wb.gov.in. Select your district, enter your mobile number, verify the OTP, and complete the form with your personal, address and bank details.
4. Or apply offline at the Block Development Officer's office if you live in a rural area, the Sub-Divisional Officer's office in a municipal area, or your Kolkata Municipal Corporation ward office. Carry your Aadhaar, voter card, bank passbook and a photograph.
5. Collect the acknowledgement with your application reference number and keep it. Every status query later needs it.
6. Wait for field verification. The BDO in rural areas and the SDO in urban areas verify applicants and recommend eligible names to the District Magistrate for final approval. Under Lakshmir Bhandar the sanctioning authority was the District Magistrate, and the Commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation for households inside KMC limits.

Existing Lakshmir Bhandar beneficiaries do not need to do any of this. The migration is automatic.

How do you check your application or payment status?

Lakshmir Bhandar's own portal, socialsecurity.wb.gov.in, now redirects to socialregistry.wb.gov.in, which is the address the state portal gives for the current scheme. Status can be checked there using your district and registered mobile number, or in person at the block, panchayat or ward office with your application reference number.

Approval and rejection messages are sent to the mobile number recorded on the form. If you have changed your number since applying, update it at the same office where you applied, otherwise you will never see the message that tells you what went wrong.

Why do payments stop, and how do you fix it?

• The bank account is not Aadhaar-seeded. This is the single most common cause of a failed transfer. Seed the account, then wait one full payment cycle.
• The account is dormant or closed. Banks freeze accounts with no activity. Reactivate it at the branch.
• Aadhaar is mapped to a different bank. If you opened a newer account, the DBT still goes to whichever account is currently Aadhaar-mapped. Move the mapping before you expect the money in the new account.
• Name mismatch between Aadhaar and the bank record.
• Verification flagged the record as a duplicate, or as belonging to someone who has died or moved out of the state.
• An exclusion applies, a government salary, pension or income tax liability found during verification.

Under Lakshmir Bhandar, false information on the form invited penal action, and that principle has not changed.

Key dates

• 2021, Lakshmir Bhandar launched by the Government of West Bengal.
• 2026: final Lakshmir Bhandar revision to Rs 1,500 and Rs 1,700 a month.
• May 2026 — state notification introducing Annapurna Yojana.
• 1 June 2026, Annapurna Yojana takes effect, replacing Lakshmir Bhandar.
• June 2026; first instalment released under the new scheme, with a second round the following month as migration widened.

Where to complain

Grievances about a Lakshmir Bhandar or Annapurna payment are handled locally first. Approach the office that received your form. The Block Development Officer, the Sub-Divisional Officer or the KMC ward office, with your acknowledgement receipt. If the record shows as approved but no money has arrived, the problem is almost always at the Aadhaar-bank seeding step rather than at the scheme office, and the bank branch is the faster place to start.

The Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare, which ran Lakshmir Bhandar, is at Bikash Bhavan, DF Block, Sector 1, Salt Lake City, Kolkata 700091.

No fee is payable at any stage. The form is free, assistance at the camp or office is free, and no official will ask for your OTP.

Common reasons for rejection

Fresh applications now go in under Annapurna Yojana, but the verification steps at the Block Development Officer, the Sub-Divisional Officer or the Kolkata Municipal Corporation ward office are the same ones that used to filter Lakshmir Bhandar forms. Most rejections trace back to one of these:

• A household member holds a government salary or pension. The BDO or SDO cross-checks this during field verification, and it does not have to be the applicant herself; a father, husband or adult son on a government payroll, including a panchayat, municipality or government-aided school, is enough to disqualify the form.
• The applicant is an income tax payer. This is checked against PAN records during verification, not just declared on the form, so leaving it off the application does not avoid the check.
• Age falls outside the 25 to 60 window. A common cause is an Aadhaar date of birth that does not match the age claimed on the form; the verifying officer goes by the Aadhaar record, so correct the Aadhaar entry first rather than disputing it at the counter.
• The bank account is not in the applicant's own name, for example a joint account operated by a male relative, or an account still held in a maiden name that does not match the current Aadhaar and voter card details.
• Name or address mismatch across Aadhaar, EPIC voter card and the bank passbook. Even a spelling difference between documents is enough for a verifying officer to flag the record rather than approve it outright.
• Residence cannot be confirmed. A woman who has recently moved districts, or whose address proof is from a different state, gets held up until local residence is established, usually through the ward or panchayat office.
• Duplicate entry. A woman already registered once, under an earlier address or a slightly different name spelling, gets flagged as a duplicate when the records are matched, and the second application is rejected rather than both being approved.
• Incomplete or unsigned form, or a missing photograph, at the point the BDO, SDO or KMC office receives it. Offline forms are checked for completeness before they are even sent for field verification, and an incomplete one is returned rather than processed further.

If a form is rejected, the applicant is not barred permanently. Once the disqualifying issue is fixed, such as correcting the Aadhaar date of birth, updating the bank account to her own name, or clearing up a residence proof gap, a fresh application can be submitted at the same BDO, SDO or ward office that handled the first one.