Drought-hit Beed rolls out mass wedding drive to ease financial burden on families; couples to get monetary aid

With drought adding to the financial woes of rural families, the Beed district administration has launched a special drive to promote mass marriage ceremonies so as to help families avoid the heavy expenses associated with weddings. According to the Beed district collectorate, couples getting married under the initiative will receive financial assistance of ₹25,000 from the state government.

Beed collector Vivek Johnson has issued guidelines for implementing the drive across talukas, following directions given during a review meeting chaired by the divisional commissioner of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. “The initiative aims to reduce the financial burden on families at a time when drought conditions have raised concerns over rural livelihoods and household expenses,” said Johnson.

The state government is implementing the Kanyadan Yojana and Shubhmangal Samuhik Vivah Yojana through the social justice and special assistance department, other backward bahujan welfare department, and women and children development department. The schemes provide financial assistance to eligible brides belonging to scheduled castes, neo-Buddhist communities, de-notified tribes, nomadic tribes, other backward classes, and special backward classes, as well as families of farmers and agricultural labourers. Organisations conducting mass marriage ceremonies will also receive government assistance of ₹4,000 per couple and under certain schemes, ₹2,500 per couple.

To ensure effective implementation, the administration has formed coordination committees at the district and taluka levels. At the taluka level, the committee will be headed by the tehsildar, with the block development officer serving as member-secretary. At the district level, an additional collector will head the committee, while the assistant commissioner of social welfare will serve as member-secretary. Anganwadi workers have been appointed as contact officers to spread awareness about the schemes in villages and collect applications from eligible couples. The applications will be forwarded to child development project officers for further processing.

The taluka-level committees will scrutinise the applications and forward complete applications to the concerned district-level authorities for approval. The mass marriage ceremonies will be organised on dates decided by the district-level committee. Couples must register their marriages with the competent authorities, and obtain marriage certificates to become eligible for the grant. The financial assistance will be transferred directly to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts only after the marriage registration certificates are obtained; the administration said. The assistant commissioner of social welfare and district women and children development officer have been appointed as coordinating officers to monitor the implementation of the drive.