PM Modi to visit Tripura on Dec 18, meet with MLAs and BJP core committee on the cards

The chief minister is scheduled to join a meeting at Shillong before the Prime Minister’s visit and would be arriving at Agartala with the PM on December 18.

Tripura Information and Cultural Affairs Minister Sushanta Chowdhury said the Prime Minister is scheduled to address a public gathering at Swami Vivekananda grounds after his arrival at the Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) airport. He will also interact with beneficiaries of different welfare schemes and an interaction with MLAs and ministers is likely to be held, he added.

PM Modi’s visit comes amid an ongoing initiative of the state government to extend governance to the doorstep through a portal called ‘Amar Sarkar’ (My government) to fulfil Localised Sustainable Development Goals (LSDG).

The ‘Amar Sarkar’ initiative was designed as a web-based grievance redressal portal where issues faced by rural people could be raised and would be addressed in a time-bound manner. The whole grievance redressal system would also be monitored at the highest level.

The portal is a revamped version of a previously existing website, which had similar mandates but did not have a sufficient frequency of grievance registration.

The ‘Amar Sarkar’ portal, which was launched on November 17 this year, has already seen 1,976 issues registered in less than a month as compared to the 9,715 issues registered in the previous four years.

In his address at the orientation programme of the portal, Saha said his government is focused on ensuring that all welfare scheme benefits reach people, instead of being limited to slogans and seminars. “We work to ensure all welfare schemes and benefits reach people. We have a slogan ‘Sabki Yojana, Sabka Vikas’, which means schemes are for the benefit of people. There is less time but a lot of work. We have to reach 100 per cent saturation point,” the CM said, adding that Tripura is very close to achieving 100 per cent in different sectors.

Apart from the government machinery, local public representatives should take proactive steps in raising and resolving issues faced in villages, the CM said.

Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Devvarma, who also joined the orientation programme on Wednesday, said the ‘Amar Sarkar’ website is mandated for problem resolution in far-flung villages using technical inputs.

“Technology is not for towns and cities alone. The PM said it is supposed to be used for the benefit of the last person in society who often cannot access sub-division or district headquarters. Our government has been trying from day one, including setting up 12 aspirational blocks, higher allocation under MGNREGA…,” the deputy chief minister said. He added that good work was done in the BJP-led government’s tenure but it could have been better. He also said his government would not accept mere growth and infrastructure development as true development.

The ‘Amar Sarkar’ initiative

The ‘Amar Sarkar’ initiative involves nine major themes, including poverty alleviation and enhanced livelihood in villages, healthy villages, child-friendly panchayats, water-sufficient panchayats, clean and green villages, self-sufficient infrastructure in villages, socially secured villages, good governance and engendered development in villages.

“Growth is a part of development. SDGs have to be localised to usher in true development. This is a part of Gram Swaraj, making villages self-reliant, beautiful and clean. Elected public representatives need to spend money on the ground for real development. Buildings alone do not mean sustainable development,” Devvarma said.

Reports suggest 75 per cent of people in the state live in villages, Devvarma said, adding that his government is committed to pushing development to the villages, beyond major cities like Agartala, Udaipur and Dharmanagar.

Under the initiative, officials from concerned departments, block- and district-level monitoring committees and elected public representatives would visit villages in their area every Thursday to ensure round-the-year inspection of localised problems faced by rural people and resolve them at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the state government has announced to observe every Monday as ‘Amar Sarkar’ day to direct targeted attention to specific department-oriented issues at the ground level.

Details of grievances along with photographs have to be uploaded on the ‘Amar Sarkar’ portal. The issues raised at the portal would also be automatically tagged with concerned departments and officials from those departments would have to act on the issues in a time-bound manner. A photograph and certificate would be issued after the issue is closed. If any issue is unattended for over four days, it would be escalated to higher officials as per specific colour codes of urgency.

As per initial estimates, the government is expecting around 20 issues from the gram panchayat or panchayat samiti. The website also has integrated support from district- and block-level monitoring committees. These monitoring committees would meet periodically and resolve pending issues and offer a clear picture of issues faced by people in the villages to the chief minister, deputy CM and ministers concerned.

Every department would need to form an ‘Amar Sarkar’ cell and departments would be required to review pending issues periodically. No issue can be closed without resolving it.