Tripura govt announces Rs 10 lakh compensation for COVID-19 deaths

Agartala: In a major development, the Tripura government has decided to revise the compensation from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 10 lakh for COVID-19 related deaths of any frontline worker, announced chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Wednesday.

In a press statement issued by the chief minister’s office (CMO), Deb said that the state government would provide an amount of Rs 10 lakh to the families of the frontline workers, in case of deaths, including doctors, nurses, health workers, paramedics, police personnel, journalists, sweeping staffers, ICP staffers, Asha workers, civil administration officials and line departments along with all citizens.

While the ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh, previously declared by the state government, would be given from SDRF, the remaining Rs 6 lakh will be given from Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF).

The chief minister also announced that 50,000 families belonging to above poverty line (APL), who got free ration, would now receive one-time assistance of Rs 1,000 each — a total of Rs 5 crore — from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.

In another move, the state government has made arrangements for train bookings from Wednesday to send back 33,000 migrant workers to their respective states. All the expenditures of around Rs 2.50 crore would be borne from the CMRF.

The state government has also decided to bring back Tripura’s residents stranded in other parts of the country at government expense. “Two trains would run to Tripura —one from Bangalore (expenditure Rs 14.50 lakh) and another from Chennai with expenditure around Rs 16 lakh,” a press statement said.

Meanwhile, the chief minister launched an online portal, Mukhyamantri Yuba Yogayog Yojna (MYYY), for providing smartphones to 14, 608 final-year students of colleges/ universities, as promised by the government earlier.

While launching the portal, the chief minister said the youth would be benefited from this scheme to a great extent. “Under this scheme, the state government would provide Rs 5,000 to 14,608 youths — final-year students of colleges and universities — as grant for smartphones. The submission of online applications for MYYY) would continue from May 6 till June 6,” Deb added.

The students can purchase their choice of handset and upload the bill and other details after registering for the scheme — the state government will give the money in their bank accounts through direct bank transfer (DBT) in the month of July.

The verification of online applications would take place between May 15 and June 15 while disbursement of the grant would be completed between July 1 and July 15.

Meanwhile, in the last five days, Tripura has seen a sudden rise of cases from 0 to 62, including five children, two women and one mess worker from Ambassa unit of 138th BSF battalion, taking the total number of positive cases in the state to 64, including two who have been discharged after they recovered from the novel coronavirus.