Delhi’s shift from Ladli to Lakhpati Bitiya marks a redesign of cash incentives for girls, with the key test being whether higher benefits and digital delivery translate into sustained educational attainment and human capital gains
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Delhi’s decision to replace its 2008 Ladli Scheme with the new ‘Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana’, to be implemented from 1 April 2026, goes beyond mere rebranding: it increases the benefits, extends incentives into higher education, fully digitises the delivery mechanism, and seeks to address long-pending unclaimed payouts. Whether the Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana evolves into a genuine human capital intervention for girls—rather than repeating the low realisation rates of its predecessor—will depend on coupling it with meaningful educational support and timely cash transfers that enable girls to learn and succeed.
The revised Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana introduces four upgrades to the previous scheme. The first concerns the size and structure of benefits. Under the new design, the government will deposit up to INR 56,000 for each eligible girl in phased instalments linked to key life and education milestones, with the maturity value expected to exceed INR 1 lakh with interest. This represents a 55 percent increase over the Ladli scheme’s contribution of INR 36,000. As announced, the payments include INR 11,000 at birth, INR 5,000 each on admission to Classes I, VI, IX, and XII, INR 5,000 on passing Class X, and INR 20,000 in phases linked to graduation or a recognised diploma.
Whether the Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana evolves into a genuine human capital intervention for girls—rather than repeating the low realisation rates of its predecessor—will depend on coupling it with meaningful educational support and timely cash transfers that enable girls to learn and succeed.
Second, the education horizon has been extended from school stages to include graduation or a diploma. Under Lakhpati Bitiya, additional phased deposits of INR 20,000 apply if the girl pursues higher education, and the maturity amount becomes accessible after completing graduation or a diploma at age 21 or beyond. This matters because the challenge of a girl child’s education in India now extends beyond completing secondary school to accessing higher education, where financial and social barriers are more pronounced, even though it yields higher income returns once employed[1].
Third is a push for delivery reform, with the provision of fully digital payouts. The Delhi government has highlighted that 1.86 lakh maturity accounts under the older scheme have been lying unclaimed, signalling a hard-to-claim design in the previous scheme framework.
Fourth, although eligibility remains broadly similar, the income threshold has been increased to an annual income of INR 1.2 lakh. This slightly expands coverage.
Early girl child financial incentive schemes in India aimed at improving sex ratios, promoting the survival of girls, and shaping parental behaviour, including fostering a positive attitude towards daughters and encouraging household investment in their health and schooling. Haryana’s Apni Beti Apna Dhan, launched in the mid-1990s, was India’s first large conditional cash transfer (CCT) for the girl child and offered a long-term savings bond redeemable at age 18 if the girl remained unmarried. Families often interpreted the payout as a form of marriage-related security rather than as an educational investment.
Over time, cash payouts became explicitly linked to school enrolment and progression and were increasingly framed around women’s empowerment, delayed marriage, and social protection. In more recent years, albeit unevenly, these schemes have been reoriented towards a human capital strategy focused on higher education access to support future labour market participation.
From the mid-2000s, several states began adopting Ladli- and Lakshmi-themed schemes that explicitly link cash transfers to school enrolment and progression milestones, often supplemented by a large maturity payout at age 18. The Dhan Laxmi Scheme of the Government of India (2008), Delhi’s Ladli Scheme (2008), Madhya Pradesh’s Ladli Lakshmi Yojana (2006), Karnataka’s Bhagyalakshmi Scheme (2006), and Himachal Pradesh’s Beti Hai Anmol Scheme (2010) exemplify this wave. Rapid proliferation across states was driven by skewed sex ratios as well as efforts to universalise primary education. While these schemes significantly expanded primary education coverage, recurring weaknesses persisted, including administrative complexity, low awareness, difficulties in claiming maturity benefits, and limited evidence on learning outcomes.
Rising costs, mobility constraints, and uncertain labour market returns remain key bottlenecks in the girl child’s transition from school to higher education.
By the early 2010s, the policy focus shifted from initial enrolment to retaining girls in school through adolescence, with an emphasis on secondary school transition. The National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education (NSIGSE) attempted to address this by providing a fixed deposit of INR 3,000 upon enrolment in Class IX, to be withdrawn later upon meeting prescribed conditions. At the state level, West Bengal’s Kanyashree Prakalpa (2013) emerged as the most prominent adolescent-focused conditional cash transfer. The scheme combined annual scholarships with a one-time grant at age 18 for girls who continued their education and remained unmarried. While Kanyashree significantly increased female school enrolment, it did not improve learning outcomes, likely due to school-system constraints such as overcrowded classrooms and teacher absenteeism.
The next phase was shaped by this debate on how cash incentives can move beyond merely extending years of schooling to supporting skills acquisition and learning outcomes. The emphasis shifted toward ensuring access and completion of higher education. However, rising costs, mobility constraints, and uncertain labour market returns remain key bottlenecks in the girl child’s transition from school to higher education. To address these challenges, Tamil Nadu’s Pudhumai Penn Scheme marks a structural shift away from maturity-based designs. Instead of a deferred lump-sum payout, it provides INR 1,000 per month while the girl is enrolled in higher education, directly easing cash-flow constraints during the college years.
Delhi’s shift from Ladli to Lakhpati Bitiya reflects parts of this important learning curve, but its success will depend on the continuous tracking of beneficiaries and outcomes.
To sum up, over three decades of India’s experience with conditional cash transfers (CCTs) for girls offers several key policy lessons:
Delhi’s shift from Ladli to Lakhpati Bitiya reflects parts of this important learning curve, but its success will depend on the continuous tracking of beneficiaries and outcomes.
To monitor progress meaningfully, the government should establish a simple, publicly accessible dashboard that tracks the number of girls enrolled, the stages at which dropouts occur, transitions into higher education, and completion rates. It should also include at least one learning indicator. While not a perfect measure, Class X and XII pass rates could serve as a proxy. Making this information publicly available would clarify whether the scheme is improving retention and progression, strengthen accountability, and provide evidence to guide mid-course correction and future policy refinement.
Based on such tracking, resources can be concentrated at the stages where dropouts are highest. Delhi already provides payments at Class I, VI, IX, X, and XII. However, the largest attrition typically occurs at Class IX and again at Class XI or during the transition to college. Rather than dispersing smaller amounts across the early years, the scheme could allocate a larger share of funds towards these critical transition points, when families are most likely to withdraw girls from school.
Alongside digitalisation, payouts should be automatic. Going forward, the system should actively track beneficiaries and prompt them through reminder messages, pre-filled digital forms, and helpdesks in schools and colleges, so that eligible payments do not remain unclaimed simply because recipients do not know how to access them.
Cash incentives should be paired with educational support that enables girls not only to enrol but also to learn and succeed.
Cash incentives should be paired with educational support that enables girls not only to enrol but also to learn and succeed. The scheme could incorporate practical measures such as bridge or remedial programmes at the transition to secondary school, along with counselling and career guidance, so that families can see a clear pathway from education to employment and opportunity.
At the higher education stage, benefits should be structured as monthly support rather than a distant, endpoint reward. Tamil Nadu’s monthly stipend model is instructive because it helps cover everyday expenses while the student is enrolled. Delhi need not replicate it entirely, but it could consider disbursing a portion of the graduation-linked INR 20,000 in smaller, periodic instalments during college or diploma programmes, so that girls are not forced to drop out due to day-to-day financial pressures.
To conclude, Delhi’s transition from Ladli to Lakhpati Bitiya is significant, but the broader Indian evidence is clear on one point: while financial incentives can keep girls in school, they cannot, on their own, guarantee skills or opportunity. The real test of reform for Delhi is therefore straightforward—whether it can convert a visible welfare promise into a measurable human capital investment by tracking outcomes transparently, ensuring payments are easy to access, and strengthening the quality of education that girls receive.
Arpan Tulsyan is a Senior Fellow with the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy at the Observer Research Foundation.
[1] Evidence in India shows that even female labour force participation does not always rise with increase in education levels, due to social and structural barriers. However, the economic returns to higher education, when women are employed, are demonstrably positive, which is precisely the human capital rationale for schemes that aim to push girls into and through higher education. positive
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Arpan Tulsyan is a Senior Fellow at ORF’s Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED). With 16 years of experience in development research and policy advocacy, Arpan ...
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