Transgender community now receives benefits under Gruha Lakshmi scheme, welcomes the move

Members of the transgender community have welcomed the sanctioning of monetary benefits under the Gruha Lakshmi scheme, which is one of the Congress government’s five poll guarantees.

In the beginning, the scheme covered women heads of families, offering a pension of ₹2,000. The scheme has now been extended to transwomen. They started receiving the benefit on December 11, and over 15,000 transwomen have benefitted so far.

In a statement on Friday, the Movement for Gender and Sexual Pluralism, said, “We welcome the sanctioning of money under the Gruha Lakshmi scheme. After many organisations fought for the inclusion of transwomen in the scheme, the Department of Women and Child Development announced in June 2024 that sexual minorities can apply for the scheme with their transgender (TG) card.”

Thus, many transwomen applied for the scheme in July. Even though it was delayed by four months, the community members finally received the money on December 11, it stated.

Maya Nayak, a transgender woman from Yadgir and one of the first beneficiaries from the transgender community, said, “Many transwomen resort to sex work or begging to even afford basic things like house rent. Now, we can use this money to pay house rent or any such necessities. All the credit should go to our coalitions and movements that fought for this. The government finally heard us.”

The representatives of the community also said that while this move increased their trust in the government, it would benefit economically weaker persons. “The government should frame more policies for the overall development of the sexual minority community,” the representatives said.

Published - December 13, 2024 08:42 pm IST