Guv appreciates Tripura Govt's effort in Assembly speech

Agartala, Mar 17 (UNI) Tripura Governor D N Sahaya appreciated the efforts of Manik Sarkar-led fifth Left Front government while expressing concern at the country's grim situation in his inaugural speech of the first session of the newly formed tenth Tripura Assembly today.

Mr Sahaya said the commonman and farmers, in particular, were being put to great hardship with spiralling prices of essential commodities and food grains, rising inflation, erosion of real income and decrease in purchasing capacity.

'' My government is of the view that all these are happening in the name of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation though in actual fact all this is nothing short of toeing World Bank/ International Monetary Fund line of so-called economic reforms,'' Mr Sahaya said.

He pointed out that the per capita income of the state stood at Rs 20,357 in the current fiscal, which was Rs 18,759 in 2001-02 and was only slightly behind the all India level of Rs 20,860.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Tripura has been increasing over past few years and it was at present Rs 9,124 crore as compared to Rs 7,550 crore in 2003-04, Mr Sahaya said adding that the annual rate of growth of Tripura had also been growing steadily and was now at 8.16 per cent compared to 8.09 per cent in 2003-04.

Lauding the Left Front government's initiative, the Governor said the state government was promoting setting up of agri-based, horticulture-based and agro-processing industries and after the announcement of Northeast Industrial and Investment policy 2007, Tripura had also revised its incentive package to attract investors to the state.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Badal Choudhury placed the supplementary budget for 2007-08 and vote on account of Rs 115104.35 lakh for the first three months of 2008-09 this afternoon in the House.

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