Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday rolled out the Annapurna Yojana by transferring benefits to 1.10 crore women at a programme in Netaji Indoor Stadium.

He made it clear that the government would verify all applications under the scheme to prevent misappropriation of funds.

“A total of 1.60 crore applications have been received, of which 26 lakh have been rejected. Of the 1.30 crore-odd applications that have been cleared, 1,09,92,378 beneficiaries will receive the money in their accounts today. The remaining will get the benefits as soon as their names are uploaded on the (upcoming) dedicated portal,” Suvendu said at the event.

Women aged between 25 and 60 years and who meet the criteria set for the scheme will each receive ₹3,000 every month under the Annapurna Yojana.

The Trinamool government used to run a similar scheme —Lakshmir Bhandar — under which general-category women used to receive ₹1,500 every month and SC/ST beneficiaries got ₹1,700 a month.

Lakshmir Bhandar was believed to be one of the main drivers of Trinamool’s electoral success, but had faced allegations that it had lakhs of bogus beneficiaries. Sources in the state administration said Suvendu had made it clear that his government would verify all applications before transferring funds after it was found that 27 lakh of 2.21 crore beneficiaries under Lakshmir Bhandar were ineligible, straining the state’s coffers.

When the new BJP government scrutinised the beneficiary list, Suvendu said, many were found to be dead or having shifted permanently out of the state.

Non-Indians and many of those deleted permanently from the post-SIR voters list were also found to be receiving the dole, the chief minister said.

“This is the reason why we have decided to verify the beneficiaries by introducing an application form,” he said.

Malati Rava Roy, the minister of state (independent charge) of the women and child development and social welfare department, said permanent government employees who pay income tax and/ or whose children don’t study in government and aided schools have been kept out of the ambit of Annapurna Bhandar.

Sources in the administration said proper verification and keeping certain sections out of the scheme would reduce the number of beneficiaries significantly.

“There were 2.21 crore beneficiaries under Lakshmir Bhandar only because the previous government did not allow officials to verify the applications received. This is the reason why more than 27 lakh ineligible beneficiaries were included. Now, under the criteria set for Annapurna Bhandar and the strict scrutiny, the number of beneficiaries could come down to around 1.30 crore,” an official said.