Tripura unhappy over slicing of MGNREGA fund

Tripura government today expressed its dissatisfaction over the slicing of the fund allocation for MGNREGA for the state and urged the Centre to immediately increase funds for generation of employments in the rural areas.
"We have topped in the country for three last three consecutive years in implementation of MGNREGA and our fund allocation was sliced by the central government. Last year we were allocated Rs 943.66 crore, but this time they informed us that only Rs 662 crore would be given. This would lead to slashing of rural employments in the state," state Rural Development Minister Naresh Jamatiya told reporters here.

Allocation for Tripura in the 2013-14 financial year was earmarked by the central government at Rs 1406.94 crore, but suddenly this allocation was slashed to only Rs 662, which was 54 per cent of the allocation of this year.
"I have written to the Union Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari to kindly increase the allocation as earmarked earlier, otherwise the state would face acute financial crunch in giving jobs to the rural people," he said.
Jamatiya also demanded for increasing the number of backward blocks. "Now 15 blocks are identified as backward. We have demanded for increasing the number so that we could get more funds for the people living in the backward areas," he said.