Tripura govt announces pension for women deserted by husband

CM Manik Sarkar said the decision was taken in the Cabinet meeting yesterday

Tripura government has announced a new social security pension scheme for the women deserted by their husbands, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said.

"The new scheme has provisions of Rs 500 as monthly pension for deserted women from APL category. Earlier the scheme was prevalent for deserted women living below poverty line (BPL) category only," Sarkar told reporters at the civil Secretariat last evening.

He said this decision was taken in the cabinet meeting yesterday. The initiative would incur an additional annual financial involvement of Rs 26.70 crore.

The cabinet meeting has also decided to raise all social security scheme awards in the state from Rs 400 to Rs 500 and altogether 3,877 deserted women in the state would be benefited.

The state government has been awarding social security pension to deserted women from BPL category among 21 social security schemes operational in the state.

These include three Centrally sponsored and 18 solely state sponsored schemes.

The state government has initiated a number of schemes for rehabilitation of the shifting cultivators as the shifting cultivation or otherwise known as Jhum cultivation affects environment, he said.

Department for Rural Development and the Gram Panchayats were asked to conduct survey to find out real number of jhumiya population.

"We are planning to provide pensions to the hardcore Jhumiyas which would be finalised after getting the real numbers," the Chief Minister said.