IN the wake of countrywide lockdown against Covid-19, in order to provide some relief to the poor and the working people of Tripura, the CPI(M) MLAs have decided to donate 25 per cent of their salary for the next three months to the CM's relief fund.

On April 3, a delegation consisting of opposition chief whip Tapan Chakraborty,  MLAs Ratan Bhowmik and Sahid Chowdhury met the chief secretary of the state, Manoj Kumar, IAS and handed over cheques for the first month donation of a total of eight MLAs. The rest eight shall be donating the sum to the CM's relief fund through the respective SDMs of their subdivisions.

The delegation urged the chief secretary to ensure strict vigil so that free ration as announced by the government reaches every corner of the state regularly.

They informed the chief secretary that in many tribal areas, people have been forced to mortgage their ration cards to the moneylenders and as a result actual beneficiaries of the free ration are being deprived of their due right. They requested the chief secretary to direct the administration to hold a special drive as soon as possible to recover these ration cards and hand them over to the actual cardholders. 

The delegation said that all over the state, working people are not able to go to their work places due to the lockdown. Hence they are running short of liquid cash to purchase food and other essential commodities and are in utter distress. As such, the government should immediately provide them with sufficient money at one go. They requested the chief secretary to give special attention to the tribal areas. They mentioned that already two persons including a child have died due to starvation.

The delegation said, already in some areas shortage of drinking water has been reported.  The administration should supply drinking water through tankers in those areas as soon as possible.

They further requested that the tea garden workers, construction workers and other working people, migrant labourers who depend on daily earnings, should also get free ration during this period. Earlier, CPI(M) MLAs  (total 16) in Tripura  had donated Rs 10 lakhs each from their MLA area development fund for procurement of PPEs including mask, gloves and medicines and for further development of health centres/ hospitals across the state to fight Covid-19.

It is worth mentioning that they wanted to give Rs 25 lakhs each  for the purpose,  but the BJP led state government agreed to take only Rs 10 lakhs each.

In addition to that, Rajya Sabha member from Tripura, Jharna Das Baidya donated Rs One crore from her MPLAD fund to strengthen the fight against Covid-19.

Prior to this, CPI(M) state secretary Gautam Das, in a telephonic conversation followed by a formal letter to the chief secretary, mentioned specific information about the tribal hamlets where foodgrains had not yet reached. He had also informed the chief secretary about the large number of mortgaged ration cards in tribal areas and requested him to recover them. He too had requested the chief secretary to provide cash to the poorer sections so that they can purchase food and other essential commodities.