Kolkata, July 1 -- The West Bengal government has rejected around 2.6 million applications for the newly launched Annapurna Yojana on citizenship-related grounds after scrutiny using Special Intensive Revision (SIR) data, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari said on Wednesday, adding that more than 13 million applications were found to be genuine.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which had included the Annapurna Yojana in its election manifesto, rolled out the scheme on June 3 after coming to power by defeating the Trinamool Congress (TMC). In its first budget, presented last month, the government allocated Rs.36,000 crore for the project in the current financial year.

"We received around 16 million applications. While more than ...