Agartala, October 1 (TIWN): Tripura Rural Development (RD) Minister Naresh Jamatia wrote to Union RD minister Nitin Gadkari and sought his intervention to maintain sustainable benefits allowed under the MGNREGA

In a letter to the union minister, Jamatia said that any possibility of shrinking of the central poverty alleviation scheme might result in economic unrest among the rural poor job-card holders if there were sharp drops of employment avenues in the rural areas.

He said that Tripura was viciously deprived in the NREGS awards in the current labour budget.

Tripura was approved a labour budget of Rs. 652,091 crores against the projected requirement of Rs. 1,406.96 crores with an average curtailment of 69 percent.

Indicative allocation of funds were sharply increased for rajasthan (144.51 percent), West Bengal (126.35 percent), Tamil Nadu (106.66 percent), Kerala (124.31 percent) and Madhya Pradesh (112.55 percent).

Speaking to reporters later at the civil secretariat, the minister said that the decision of the central government to curtail NREGS fund allocation for Tripura despite its commendable performance of being consecutively national topper in implementation of the flagship scheme was unfortunate.

Tripura currently has 6.50 lakh job card holders according to the statistics of RD Department. Estimated  man-days generation target for the current financial year stands at 5.14 crore mandays.