Gold Rings, Cash Transfers, Free Power: What Indian States Are Giving Their Citizens
Tamil Nadu Gold Ring Scheme: Tamil Nadu launches its gold ring scheme for newborns from Monday. A look at how it compares to Punjab’s cash and free power schemes, Haryana’s Lado Lakshmi, and welfare schemes across other states.
By North Desk Correspondent
From Monday, Tamil Nadu will begin gifting a gold ring to every newborn delivered in a government hospital — the latest entrant in a growing list of state welfare schemes across India that hand out everything from monthly cash to free electricity. Here’s what Tamil Nadu is offering, and how it compares to what other states, including Punjab and Haryana, are giving their own citizens.
Tamil Nadu: A gold ring for every newborn
Tamil Nadu Gold Ring Scheme: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay will launch the Thaaimaman Thanga Mothiram Thittam — the “Maternal Uncle Golden Ring Scheme” — on Monday, under which every baby born in a government hospital in the state will receive a one-gram, 22-carat gold ring.
Tamil Nadu Gold Ring Scheme: The launch takes place in Madurai at Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH), where Vijay will arrive by special flight, inaugurate the scheme at the hospital auditorium, and present rings to 25 newborns in person, before visiting the maternity ward separately.
To qualify, the newborn’s mother must be a permanent resident of Tamil Nadu, registered under the state’s Pregnancy and Infant Cohort Monitoring and Evaluation (PICME) system, and hold a Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) ID. The ring is handed over at discharge, not at birth.
The government has set aside an annual outlay of ₹755.83 crore for the scheme. In the first phase, 1.28 lakh gold rings have been prepared, each carrying a unique serial number in tamper-proof packaging — a detail the government is visibly leaning on to pre-empt questions about pilferage. Work orders for supplying the rings have gone to Joyalukkas and Kalyan Jewellers, and a district Collector-headed committee has been set up in every district to oversee implementation.
The scheme was originally meant to launch on September 15 — the birth anniversary of former Chief Minister C N Annadurai — but was delayed because Vijay was on an overseas trip to London. The Government Order formalising the scheme was notified in June 2026, and it was one of the marquee pre-poll welfare promises of the ruling TVK (Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam).
Officials are also framing it as a public-health nudge: around 7.80 lakh children are born in Tamil Nadu every year, and per NFHS-6 data, 99.9 per cent of these deliveries already happen in healthcare institutions, with 53 per cent occurring in government hospitals.
Tamil Nadu Gold Ring Scheme: So what is your own state giving you?
A look at what a clutch of other states — several with schemes far bigger in scale than Tamil Nadu’s gold rings — are currently offering their citizens.
Punjab: Cash for women, free power for everyone
Punjab runs two of the more wide-reaching welfare schemes in the country, both under Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s AAP government.
Under the Mukh Mantri Mawan Dheeyan Satkar Yojana, announced in the March 2026 state budget and launched on 14 April, eligible women receive ₹1,000 a month, with SC women receiving ₹1,500. The scheme is designed to cover close to 97 per cent of Punjab’s adult women — around 52 lakh beneficiaries at the outset. The first payment went out on 1 July as a lump sum covering three months’ arrears (₹3,000 for general category, ₹4,500 for SC beneficiaries), and further instalments have followed, including one on 28 August. As of early August, around 35.5 lakh women had received payments, with registration and verification continuing across the state through Sewa Kendras and Anganwadi centres.
Separately, Punjab has been providing 300 units of free electricity to every household each month since July 1, 2022 — one of the AAP government’s original poll guarantees. The scheme now covers close to 90 per cent of Punjab’s households with zero electricity bills, at an annual cost running into thousands of crores for the state exchequer.
Punjab’s Aashirwad Scheme, meanwhile, offers ₹51,000 as a one-time “shagun” for the wedding of a daughter from SC, BC, or economically weaker households — a scheme that dates back to 1997 in an earlier form and was hiked to its present amount in 2021.
Haryana: A higher monthly figure, recently widened
Tamil Nadu Gold Ring Scheme: Haryana’s answer to Punjab’s cash scheme is the Deen Dayal Lado Lakshmi Yojana, launched on 25 September 2025 under Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini. Eligible women aged 23 and above receive ₹2,100 a month via DBT — a higher figure than Punjab’s scheme, though with tighter income conditions. In September 2026, the state raised the annual family income ceiling for eligibility from ₹1 lakh to ₹1.80 lakh, a move that is expected to bring roughly 17 lakh additional women into the scheme.
Elsewhere: Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka
Tamil Nadu Gold Ring Scheme: Several other states run comparable monthly cash-transfer schemes for women, at varying amounts:
- Madhya Pradesh’s Ladli Behna Yojana, the scheme often credited with starting this wave of state cash transfers, currently pays ₹1,500 a month to over 1.25 crore women, after being raised from ₹1,250 following Diwali 2025.
- Maharashtra’s Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana pays ₹1,500 a month to women aged 21-65 from families earning under ₹2.5 lakh annually — a promised hike to ₹2,100 has been announced by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis but has not yet been implemented.
- Karnataka’s Gruha Lakshmi Scheme, one of the state’s five Congress-government “guarantees,” pays ₹2,000 a month to the woman head of every eligible household, alongside a separate scheme (Gruha Jyothi) offering up to 200 units of free electricity.
Delhi and West Bengal: Newer promises, not yet on the ground
Tamil Nadu Gold Ring Scheme: Two other big-ticket schemes are worth noting, though both are still in earlier stages of rollout than the ones above.
In Delhi, the BJP government under Chief Minister Rekha Gupta approved the Mahila Samriddhi Yojana in March 2025, promising ₹2,500 a month to eligible women aged 21-60 from families earning under ₹3 lakh annually, with ₹5,100 crore set aside in the budget. A registration portal was announced to open on 1 August 2026.
In West Bengal, the long-running Lakshmir Bhandar scheme — which paid ₹1,000 to ₹1,700 a month depending on category — has been discontinued following the change of government after the 2026 Assembly election. The new BJP government under Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has introduced the Annapurna Bhandar scheme in its place, promising ₹3,000 a month to eligible women aged 25-60.
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