Tripura Congress President Ashish Kumar Sah on Saturday said that people in rural areas are facing serious economic problems as the state government has failed to provide half of the jobs promised under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Speaking to reporters in Agartala, Shah alleged that the state government had provided only 40 days of work under MGNREGA in the financial year 2024-25, while 63 days of work had been provided in the previous financial year.
“Before coming to power in 2018, the BJP had promised to increase the number of working days under MNREGA from 100 to 200 and increase wages by Rs 340 per day. However, they have failed to provide even 100 days of work to the people. Currently, 130,066 Out of 167 families, those with more than 683,860 employment cards have not been given a single day’s work under the program,’ said Shah.
He accused the ruling BJP leaders of directing officials to distribute work to a section of people. He also accused the state government of not providing adequate support to the nearly two million flood and landslide victims.
In this August flood, nearly 36 people died and at least 62,205 houses were damaged, out of which 8,830 houses were completely destroyed and another 8,978 houses were severely damaged.
On August 29, the Tripura government declared the entire state a ‘natural calamity affected area’ due to the dire situation leading to loss of human life and damage to public and private property. This decision was taken despite the improvement in the flood situation that started on August 24.
Earlier, the Congress had organized people’s representatives in the capital demanding to provide proper compensation to various victim groups including family members of the working class, farmers, fish farming businessmen who lost their lives due to floods or landslides. .
The CPI(M) also accused the BJP of alleged failures in the employment sector, maintenance of law and order, curbing corruption and others.