Tripura govt increases daily wage unber MGNREGA by Rs 15 a day

The Tripura government has increased the daily wage rate under the MGNREGA scheme from Rs 177 to Rs 192 per day. The government claimed that it has generated more man-days under the rural employment guarantee scheme in last one year than done by the erstwhile Left Front ministry.

The BJP-IPFT coalition government assumed office in Tripura in March last year by ending the two-and-a-half-decade old communist rule. Deputy Chief Minister, Jishnu Devvarma, on Friday told reporters that during the left front government's tenure in 2017-2018 financial years altogether 28.46 lakh man-days were created, but in the last fiscal (2018-2019) it increased to 34.67 lakh.

The opposition Left Front always blamed us that we shrank the rural job during our tenure, but the facts remain that in our tenure it has increased, Devvarma, who also holds the Finance and Rural Development portfolios, said. In the first four months of the current financial year, altogether 56.02 lakh man-days were created and in the current financial year the government has fixed a target of more than three crore man-days, Secretary of state Rural Development department, Soumya Gupta said.

She said the Union government released Rs 121.96 crore this year for MGNREGA wages, out of which Rs 104.52 crore has been spent. The opposition CPM earlier alleged that many people from indigenous communities in Dhalai had fled to neighbouring Bangladesh for collection of forest produces in the wake of the severe food crisis and lack of jobs under MGNREGA in May this year.