People's Democracy

IN yet another instance of providing to the underprivileged people of Tripura maximum relief possible within its extremely limited means, the Left Front government adopted a number of decision in its cabinet meeting on July 2. The decisions were announced on July 3 afternoon by the state’s information minister Jitendra Chowdhury at the Civil Secretariat in a press briefing.

According to one of these decisions, regular labourers in the state governments’ agriculture, forest, animal resource development, and industry and commerce departments will henceforth get a minimum pension of Rs 400 per month instead of Rs 100 as at present. Although many of these labourers have already been getting pension up to Rs 1,200, the lowest statutory pension had so far been Rs 100 only. This hike in the bottomline, that immediately came into effect, will benefit more than 2,000 regular labourers working in the various departments of the state government.

In another welfare decision of the Left Front cabinet, in the event a state government employee suffers total disablement while on duty, a member of the family will get government service in his/her stead. As per the existing provision so far, such a benefit could be claimed only if an employee died while on duty.

The unorganised labourer assistance scheme, launched by the Left Front government on May 1, will now bring into its purview those unorganised labourers also who are working in rubber plantations and in the laundries in Tripura. These sections were not covered by this scheme at the time of its inception, when 16 categories of unroganised labourers were selected as beneficiaries of the scheme.

In one more significant cabinet decision taken on July 2, the state government will not allow any bonded warehouse (liquour godown) to be set up within 100 metres of any religious place like temple, mosque or ashram. Nor can any such person own such a godown who has at any time been convicted of a non-bailable offence.

Also, with effect from the 2003-2004 academic session, the Tripura Joint Entrance Examination will follow its own syllabus, instead of that being followed in any other state. This is what was recommended by a 10-member committee entrusted with the task of formulating the syllabus. (INN)