Tripura unhappy with Centre for inadequate NREGA fund

Agartala, Sep 2(UNI) Tripura government has expressed dissatisfaction over the reduction in annual grant for implementating the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme(NREGP) in Dhalai district.

State's Rural Development Minister Jitendra Choudhury said, "Even though the grants for West and South Tripura districts remained unchanged, New Delhi has drastically slashed grants for the NREGP in Dhalai, one of the 200 most backward districts in the country identified for implementation of the scheme.

"As against the state government's demand for Rs 79.23 crore for implementing the scheme in Dhalai in the current financial year, the Centre has sanctioned only Rs 21.40 crore so far," Mr Choudhury said.

Ministry of Rural Development has sought clarification on the issue of disproportionate number of job cards issued under NREGA when the scheme was launched, the state government had furnished a list of 75,936 beneficiary families to the Centre and funds were sanctioned accordingly.

However, officials at the Centre said that they have detected anomalies in the figures while cross-checking the data with the findings of the 2001 census. The census returns and the figures on families living below poverty line in Dhalai did not match, and did not justify such a high number of families as beneficiaries.

UNI