TRIPURA NEWSLETTER/ Haripada Das

Women Press Demands For Whole State

WOMEN of Tripura staged a mass squatting all over the state on May 25 as a culmination of their month-long campaign and signature collection drive on their 8-point charter of demands relating to comprehensive development of the state. They organised mass sit-in at 13 points of the 12 sub-divisions from where fax-messages containing the 8-point demands were sent to the prime minister of India.

In a mass sit-in programme at Rabindra Shatabarshiki Bhavan, Agartala, more than five thousand women converging from Bishalgarh, Sadar-E and Sadar divisional areas continued to squat for 6 hours from 10 a m in the morning. The gathering was too much for the Rabindra Bhavan’s lawn and overflowed into the lane on both sides. The women squatting were addressed, among others, by CPI(M) state secretary Baidyanath Majumder, three MPs of the state, Kisan Sabha secretary Narayan Kar, Rama Das and Krishna Rakshit AIDWA  state president and secretary as respectively. The demands on which women collected mass signatures are below.

1. Construction of Dharmanagar-Agartala rail track must be completed within the stipulated time-frame. Broad gauge track must be constructed instead of meter gauge. Agartala-Subroom project providing broad gauge track must be taken up immediately. Agartala-Akhaura (Bangladesh) rail link must be established.

2. The women’s reservation bill providing one-third reservation for women in legislatures must be passed by the Parliament.

3. A special package for generation of employment for the state’s educated unemployed youth including women must be adopted by the government of India. Atleast 58 per cent of public deposit of the State Bank branches must be invested in the state itself and bank-loans in self-employment schemes and for self-help groups must be extended on liberal conditions.

4. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme must be introduced to provide at least 100 days’ work a year to the rural workers in all the districts of the state immediately. Ensure a minimum 40 per cent beneficiaries from the women in all government schemes.

5. The public distribution system must be revitalised. The state’s BPL quota must be determined on the basis of the actual number BPL families here. Benefits provided in all central schemes for BPL families must be extended to the state. The quantum of all pensions and allowances including the old-age pension, paid by the central government must be enhanced.  

6. All degraded forestland must be vested in the state government for the sake of rehabilitation of tribal jhumias, extension of plantation farming and for rehabilitation of tribals in cluster villages in the areas identified by the state government.

7. Central government must stand by the side with the state government with all necessary assistance including deployment of army and security forces as per requisition made by the state for combatment of the extremists.

8. The government must release the gap-grant amounts held up for preceding four years to the state immediately. Considering the special category status of the state, the government of India must bear 90 per cent of the central schemes expenditures in Tripura.

Addressing the rally, Baidyanath Majumder detailed out the centre’s discrimination against the state for long years. We are supporting these demands and we are determined to carry on movement with these inside and outside the parliament, Majumder said. He emphasised on enactment of a law for judicious utilisation of the bank deposits for the interest of the states concerned. He demanded the revitalisation of the PDS which the centre is now out to liquidate.

In his address to the gathering, Khagen Das (MP), characterised the economic policy of the UPA government and the NDA government as either side of the same coin, he stressed upon the organisation of higher form of struggle to keep the UPA government in right track. He demanded early extension of railway line upto Subroom. Bajuban Riyan and Matilal Sarkar also addressed the women squatting. 

At the end of the stay-in, women leaders handed over the packets of the mass signatures to Khagen Das, Bajuban Riyan (both MPs’ Lok Sabha) and Matilal Sarkar (MP, Rajya Sabha) for submitting then to the prime minister of India at New Delhi on behalf of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, Tripura state committee.

Similar stay-in programmes were organised by the AIDWA divisional units at the respective sub-divisional centres of the state. (INN)