Manik Sarkar, Chief Minister of Tripura, underlined the need for the Government of India to focus on human development by initiating steps to improve the quality and standard of life of people for the country to prosper.
“In Tripura, we have been successful by ensuring that the State government accords priority to human development with focus on providing free education and health besides taking up the cause of the agrarian sector,” he said.
However, expressing concern, he said that the future of the country was bleak as the country is sitting on a volcano and wanted the Government of India to adopt a similar approach to overcome it.
Delivering a special lecture on ‘Political economy in Tripura’ at the Kannada University here on Monday, Mr. Sarkar dwelt on the initiatives taken up to uplift the people of the State, providing education and healthcare, improving infrastructure facilities, including road and communication networks, to attract investments for setting industries among other things during the past four decades after the the Left Front came to power.
“Under the Congress regime, the State was reeling under starvation continuously and there was no democracy. After Left Front came to power, top most priority was accorded to chalk out a proper plan to improve the standard and quality of life of people and began working on it. Apart from providing them land, shelter, free education and healthcare services, thrust was also laid on supporting the farming community to increase their purchasing power. This initiative of our government clicked. Today, our literacy rate is 97.8 per cent, farmers are happy and the State has attained self sufficiency in food grain production besides having a vibrant democratic system,” he said adding “because of these steps, Tripura is the only State where farmers are not committing suicide.”
He informed that to further improve the facilities, the State government has now been focusing on promoting industries including those to tap natural gas, rubber, fruits processing industries, bamboo cane, medicinal plants, among other things.
He exhorted the university professors and the people to mount pressure on the Government of Karnataka to focus on key issues, which would ultimately result in human resource development.
Mallika Ghanti, Vice-Chancellor, presided.
