Agartala, Dec 24 (IANS): Tripura has urged the Centre to restore the funds allocated under central schemes after the latter curtailed funds required for the construction of roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), a Tripura minister said here Wednesday.
"The union rural development ministry was supposed to give Rs.500 crore to construct 601 km of new roads and the upgradation of existing roads by 60 percent during the current financial year. But the ministry after repeated persuasion agreed to provide Rs.190 crore only," Tripura Public Works Department Minister Badal Choudhury said.
"After the ministry's previous approval, we have constructed roads incurring an expenditure of Rs.300 crore and Rs.200 crore more is needed," he told reporters.
Choudhury, in a letter to the union Rural Development Minister Birender Singh, requested that the release of Rs.500 crore to complete the construction of roads under the PMGSY, as approved by the central ministry earlier, should be ensured.
The PMGSY was launched in December 2000 as a fully-funded centrally- sponsored scheme to provide all weather road connectivity in rural areas of the country. The programme envisaged connecting all habitations with a population of 500 persons and above in the plain areas and 250 persons and above in hilly, tribal and desert areas.
The state minister said the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)-led central government has also reduced central allocation for Tripura in the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) despite it topping all the states in the rural job scheme by providing 87 days of work per household in the 2013-14 fiscal.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, in a separate letter, has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to restore the funds allocated under the MGNREGA rural employment scheme in the state.
"The union rural development ministry has increased its allocation of funds under MGNREGA for Rajasthan, West Bengal, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and some other states but reduced central allocation for Tripura," Sarkar wrote in the letter to the prime minister.
He said that although Tripura had provided 87 days of work per household in the 2013-14 fiscal against the national average of 45 days, the state's allocation had been sharply reduced.
"Tripura received Rs.943.66 crore during the last financial year (2013-14). The union rural development ministry informed that it would provide Rs.652 crore during the current fiscal (2014-15) despite the ministry having approved the labour budget of Rs.1,406.96 crore under the MGNREGA for the ongoing financial year."
In his letter, Sarkar said that under MGNREGA guidelines, the central allocation would have to be released in two instalments, but the union ministry has so far provided Rs.373 crore in three instalments.