PATNA, Feb. 16 -- The Bihar government plans to disburse up to Rs.2 lakh each to around 4 million women from April onwards as part of the second leg of instalment under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana (MMRY), top officials in the rural development department (RDD) said. The RDD is the nodal department implementing the scheme. The 4 million women will be selected from the 15.6 million women who have so far received Rs.10,000 each as seed money to usher in their business start-ups. Their business models will be evaluated and accordingly they will be assisted with up to Rs.200,000 additional amount each, said the officials. The MMRY scheme seeks to assist rural women to generate their own employment and enhance their income. Even the women from urban areas fulfilling the criteria have been eligible for monetary support under the scheme. The initial support amount of Rs.10,000 was given to women via Direct Benefit Transfer just ahead of the October-November assembly elections in the state. Besides, the officials said, the state government will be disbursing another tranche of Rs.10,000 each to another 25 lakh eligible women beneficiaries under the MMRY , which would take the total women covered under the scheme to 18.1 million. In total 19.9 million women have applied for getting Rs.10,000 to start their own enterprises. The MMRY has been the most ambitious and popular scheme of the state government. Thus, a sum of Rs.21,000 crore was provisioned for the MMRY in the second supplementary budget of Rs.91,000 crore during the first session of the state legislature of the new NDA government in December last year. "We have the target starting the disbursal of the second instalment of the MMRY which will be up to Rs.2 lakh as monetary assistance to eligible beneficiaries and small groups of women who show promising business models and have made positive use of the first instalment of Rs.10,000 to start their own enterprises. The disbursements of different amounts would start from April onwards. It would be done in a phase-wise manner," said Himanshu Sharma, chief executive officer (CEO), Jeevika programme (Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society), which is the implementing agency of the scheme. Sharma said that the second instalment to be done to eligible women from April onwards would be made only after the process of ongoing digital mapping of all beneficiaries having been provided Rs.10,000 as first instalment is completed. "We are evaluating how the beneficiaries of the first instalment of c each have used the funds to start their businesses and have been able to increase their income. Based on this evaluation, we would select the beneficiaries who could be given a second instalment as per requirement to expand their enterprises, be it in agriculture, stitching or other sectors," said the CEO. Officials engaged in implementing the scheme said that the purpose of the scheme is also to make women beneficiaries more capable to handle the complexities of running a business through training in keeping accounts and also gaining income through some profits by wisely investing their money, as per the guidelines of the scheme. A senior RDD official said that the grant of Rs.2 lakh would be allocated to beneficiaries judging the success potential and overall scope of their business model. "Start-ups with sound business viability would be promoted while those in conventional business models would be given funds as per initial trends of income generated from the first tranche. It can vary from Rs.20,000 to Rs.1 lakh or even higher," said the RDD officer. "There is always a scope for women beneficiaries forming a small group to expand their enterprise like opening a cloth stitching centre or installing a small unit of manufacturing of spices, etc. Such enterprises have the potential of getting bulk orders and expanding to big businesses that will help generate employment to a larger number of people. Such efforts are ideal cases for support and promotions under the MMRY and the department will help them become more profitable," said another senior official in the rural development department. The RDD officials said that more women will be assisted with an additional amount up to Rs.2 lakh as the evaluation of those making use of first instalment grants will be received. "In the first phase starting from April, we are targeting to give 40-50 lakh women with the second instalment grants. We feel there would be a higher number of women members under the MMRY seeking this grant with their enterprises in sectors like agriculture and dairy. We are committed to extend our assistance to them," said the Jeevika CEO. Meanwhile, the opposition parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) or Left parties have also started putting pressure on the state government to start disbursing the second instalment of the MMRY. Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav has said that his party is keeping a close eye on when and how the government disburses the second instalment even as he has alleged the scheme launched just before the assembly polls last year was but a dole offered by the state government to influence women voters. On the other hand, deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary and other NDA ministers have reiterated that the government is committed to provide a second instalment to eligible beneficiaries under the MMRY to make the Bihar women more economically independent....