Sunita Somvanshi
West Bengal’s Annapurna Yojana, the state’s cash dole for women beneficiaries, resumes payments from August 17, 2026. The scheme provides ₹3,000 to eligible women, continuing the state’s women’s income-support programme that succeeded the earlier Lakshmi Bhandar dole.
Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said at the state secretariat Nabanna that those whose applications were verified by July 10 will receive the money on August 17. Applications filed on the portal after July 10 could not all be checked in time, so the finance department will complete the rest within a few days. Adhikari stated that roughly 90 per cent of people will receive the amount after rules were relaxed.
The chief minister said about 1.19 crore (11.9 million) beneficiaries were paid in July. Reporting from Times of India indicates 1.3 crore people were found eligible for the scheme and 26 lakh application forms were rejected. The same reporting noted that nearly 30 lakh people on the old Lakshmi Bhandar list will miss the Annapurna dole.
Several eligibility rules were eased. The criterion linked to holding 50 decimals of land, which applied across municipalities and rural areas, has been relaxed in rural areas and smaller municipalities. The seven municipal corporation areas were kept under stricter rules. The three-room house condition, mainly affecting rural and small-municipality applicants, was also relaxed. Bank-account glitches that had blocked some recipients were fixed.
Adhikari said the verification completed by July 10 would be transferred the next day, adding that most applications filed after that date had since been verified. He acknowledged complaints from July, when many beneficiaries were unhappy after the first round, and said the relaxed rules were meant to address them.
In the same Nabanna briefing, the chief minister also announced the launch of Ayushman Bharat and the Chief Minister’s Health Insurance Scheme, extending health-cover benefits to state residents.
The rollout highlights both the scale of the state’s income-support reach and the exclusions that remain as verification and eligibility rules are applied. Payments move through bank transfers under the state’s direct-benefit framework.
