Germany to fund 15 mn Euro Tripura project

Germany has come forward to fund a 15 million euro Tripura government project for socio-economic development of tribals and forest resource management.  

 The project, which would be implemented by the state government over a period of six years, would be one of the biggest foreign aided projects for the north-eastern state of Tripura.

 “This is a project for which Germany has come forward (after the state government approached it) to provide financial assistance. The main activity of the project would be forest resource management and livelihood development of tribals,” said Jitendra Chowdhury, industry and commerce minister of Tripura, to Business Standard.  Chowdhury said the state government would reach out to more than 100 villages and nearly 50,000 tribals through the project.

 The project area would cover 343,100 hectares of forest land in Dhalai district and parts of North Tripura district.            

 German government-owned development bank, KFW, will be the financer and German Technology Corporation (GTC) will provide the required technical assistance to the Tripura government for implementation of the project.  GTC will provide technical assistance to help the state government better utilise the forest-based resources for sustainable development.

 Chowdhury said that in addition to it, a similar kind of project of the state government was being funded by the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA).  The German project was recently flagged off by the state’s chief minister, Manik Sarkar, at Ambassa in North Tripura.