RBI lauds Tripura's financial management

Agartala, Mar 23: The RBI has praised the internal economic policy and financial management of Tripura, Finance Minister Badal Choudhury said here today.

Talking to mediapersons, Mr Choudhury said that the financial status of the ruling Left Front can be a model before the country, as the government has neither taken a single overdraft since 1998 nor took any advance to pay the salaries to its employees for the past 44 months.

On clearing doubts over the supplementary demands for grants of Rs 548.71 crore, that was placed in the Assembly on March 17, Mr Choudhury advocated that it was placed to ensure continuation of the development activities in the state.

He, however, stated that the planning commission had sanctioned Rs 1266.28 crore against its approved allocation of Rs 1370.15 crore besides, the state government had received less allocation in different Central schemes and added that even the allocation under the externally aided scheme was not satisfactory.

In Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) project, Rs eight crore has been sanctioned against its approved outlay of Rs 120 crore for next fiscal, he said adding that this has prompted the state government to seek supplementary demands for grants.

Pointing out the developmental projects of the state, Mr Choudhury asserted that altogether 15.49 lakh people had been covered by pure drinking water facilities through pipelines.

Besides 120 deep tube-wells to be installed in 2008-09, including 50 river based water supply projects, 150 iron removal plants, 10 overhead water reservoirs and 1000 numbers of tube-wells will be setup across the state by 2010, he stated adding that 17 more laboratories would be set up this year to test the water quality.

UNI