Mumbai, India – Ruhi Khan shares an apartment in a room in the Santacruz region west of Mumbai with her husband and two children, and her family shares a bathroom with 20 other households on her floor. The rent is 8,000 Indian rupees (around US $ 93) per month.
Last summer, the Bharatiya Janata party – Prime Minister Narendra Modi – promised 1,500 rupees per month to the women of the Maharashtra state whose household income was less than 250,000 rupees per year, as long as they support the party.
Khan qualified. She is a household mother and her husband, a driver, earns 15,000 rupees each month. She voted for the BJP.
“Additional money,” she says, sitting on a stone bench near her house, “is very precious for us.”
But the allowances were short -lived. When the monthly deposits of the Khan bank account arrested in December, it was confused.
“They announced these programs in a hurry and then remove them whenever there is stress on the budget,” explains Mehjabeen Rizvi, a social worker who has worked with the most vulnerable women in Mumbai for 20 years.
The Maharashtra is 9.3 billions of rupees (109 billion dollars) of debt – its greatest deficit in history. For 2025-26, the Minister of Finance of the State Ajit Pawar projected a income deficit of 459 million rupees (5.4 million US dollars). To reduce costs, the state has reduced the liquidity transfer program by 100 billion rupees. But in the Maharashtra, which houses Mumbai, the financial and commercial center of India, economists say that the state budget is faced with much greater stressors than cash transfers.
The cost of cash flow
Since 2020, political candidates across India have made women with low -income voters a simple promise: unconditional money for votes. If the candidate’s party takes power, these voters can expect monthly transfers to the government’s chests to their bank accounts – indefinitely.
But although the cost of the program is relatively high compared to other government programs, it is always a ribbon of what is spent elsewhere.
“If we contradict the grant given to large companies and the derisory amounts are transferred to these women, it is clear that the first prevails over the second,” explains Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
In 2019, for example, the Indian government reduced tax rates for businesses with thousands of turnover rupees, which enabled the country to lose approximately 1 billion of income rupees in 2020-2021. Niramala Sitharaman, the country’s finance minister, who was responsible for the tax reduction, said that it would stimulate investments and bring jobs to the country.
In addition, the government subsidizes many essential goods and services for the entire population, regardless of the financial need. For example, all the residents of Bengaluru who have a drinking water connection from the state supply service receive water to the small part of the cost that the State grants them to provide them, according to a January 2024 report. Likewise, many states, such as Punjab, Delhi and Karnataka, offer a limited amount of free electricity to each cleaning. Many of those who can afford to pay end up using these services for free.
“There is no question of whether the state can afford it,” said Ritu Dewan, a Mumbai-based economist and vice-president of the Indian Labor Economy Society. “They can surely. They just need to readjust their priorities and give advantages to those who need it most. ”
Trembling support
The government claims that the delay in Khan’s disbursements was because it checked the beneficiaries. Aditi Tatkare, Minister of Women and Development of the Child, told journalists in January that some ineligible women had benefited from these advantages. In March 2025, after the end of the verification process, Khan received all the money owed to him.
Khan could push a sigh of relief – just like the politicians who had promised him, and women like her. After all, the transfer programs are so popular that political leaders will be faced with serious counterpouss if they try to end them. Their recipients, such as programs, are now a strong block of voting.
“They meet as women and are not divided on the basis of the caste or other identities,” explains Rizvi, the social worker.
Khan is now going to regular women’s meetings, where she discusses questions such as price increases and how to keep responsible political parties. She is prudent, she says, and carefully plans her expenses.
“In case the money ceases to reach my account in the future, I want to be prepared,” she says.
In the midst of the state budget cuts, Khan worries if the transfers on which she is now based will disappear again.
“Being poor is not easy,” she says. “Soak in the advantages while they last.”