Agartala: There is no food or rural job crisis, and no report of starvation from tribal and interior areas of Tripura as alleged by the opposition parties, an official said here on Sunday.
“There is absolutely no food and rural job crisis in tribal and interior areas of Tripura. There is no report of starvation. Allegations of the opposition parties and reports of a section of media about crisis of food and rural jobs are completely false and imaginary,” an official of Tripura government’s revenue department said, quoting reports of the District Magistrates.
He said that after the accusations of food and rural jobs crisis in different parts of Tripura, a team of officials led by District Magistrate of the state’s interior-most district Dhalai, Vikas Singh, visited many remote tribal areas to study the situation.
“Singh, in his report (which available with IANS) to the state government, has said that tribal villagers have told the officials there is absolutely no food and rural job crisis.
Some of the tribal families have sufficient food stock,” the official said.
The district magistrate in his report said that that the tribal villagers have told the officials that there is no such instance of starvation in their and neighbouring villages.
“In fact, tribals are now busy in harvesting in their paddy field and ‘jhum’ (shifting cultivation) in mountainous hill top. It was found food stocked for three-four months in many of the villagers’ homes,” the DM’s report said.
While talking to the media on Sunday, Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma, who holds the Finance and Rural Development department, said that there is no crisis of jobs in Tripura under the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).
“Opposition parties specially the CPI-M falsely claimed that there are crisis of foods and rural jobs in Tripura. With political motivations, this accusations are only to malign the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) led government,” Dev Varma said.
Recently, the opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and Congress leaders alleged there is a huge crisis of food and rural jobs in interior and tribal areas of Tripura, causing starvation.
“Several hundred tribals from eastern and northern Tripura went to the neighbouring mountainous areas of Bangladesh in search of food and works,” CPI-M Lok Sabha member from Tripura and party’s Chief Whip in the lower house Jitendra Chowdhury had told the media. (IANS)
