Agartala: The Left Front government in Tripura has announced a 28-point development package of Rs 4,463 crore each for tribal and minority communities last night.
Talking to media, state Tribal Welfare Minister Aghore Debbarma admitted that safe drinking water had not reached to 1,675 hamlets of 4,480 tribal villages, while 1,266 hamlets did not get power and most of them were yet to get road link.
He however, stated that the state government would spend Rs 3,400 crore from state plan for development of tribal in next five years and the money would be spent for both capacity building of the beneficiaries as well as development of infrastructure.
“The package will extend support to 1.20 lakh land-deed owners who got patta under The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and also to frame out a comprehensive plan for holistic development of the people,” Debbarma said.
The government has been encouraging the land-deed owners to involve in fishery, horticulture and other settled agricultural activities in patta land and for these under the project the government would support the beneficiaries.
“Tripura has long been persuading the Centre for financing programme based activities for the beneficiaries of the Forest Right Act, as the state became pioneer in patta distribution ultimately but no support is extended from the Union government,” Debbarma stated.
Similarly, the state government has also decided to spend Rs 1063.51 crore for minority community which constituted about 14 per cent of the total population between 2013-14 and 2017-18 financial year.
Minority Welfare Minister Sahid Choudhury said the package would cover about 3.44 lakh people out of about 5.5 lakh. The money would be spent for expansion of education and other basic services for the people of the communities. (UNI)