BY TC News Desk
Agartala, September 21: The Tripura government has decided to increase the festival grant for the state employees and pensioners by Rs 300, Finance Minister Pranajit Singha Roy announced on Friday. He said that the hike will benefit 1,97,176 people and cost the state exchequer Rs 36 crore.
Addressing a press conference at the secretariat, Roy said that the festival grant for the DRW employees and pensioners approved by the Finance department, including Group-C and Group-D employees, has been increased from Rs 1,500 to Rs 1,800 for the financial year 2022-23. Similarly, the festival grant for the part-time workers, contract workers, casual workers, anganwadi workers, helpers, home guards and SPO jawans has been increased from Rs 1,700 to Rs 2,000.
The finance minister also said that the festival advance for the government employees of various categories, including Group-A, Group-B, Group-C and Group-D, will remain unchanged at Rs 20,000 this year. He added that the festival grant and advance will help all religious people to celebrate their respective festivals such as Durga Puja, Christmas, Garia Puja, Buddha Purnima, Eid-Uz-Joha, Eid-ul-Fitr, Bengali New Year, Mahavir Jayanti, Guru Nanak’s Birthday and others.
Roy further said that the festival grant and advance have been increased significantly since 2017-18. He said that in 2017-18, the festival grant was Rs 700, which was increased to Rs 1,000 in 2018-19 and to Rs 1,500 and Rs 1,700 in 2022-23. He also said that in 2017-18, the festival advance ranged from Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000, which was increased to Rs 20,000 in 2022-23. He also said that anganwadi helpers and workers did not get any festival advance earlier, but they have been getting Rs 5,000 since 2021-22. He also said that home guards and Asha workers have been getting festival advance of Rs 5,000 and Rs 2,000 respectively since 2022-23.
Finance Secretary Apurba Roy and Additional Secretary Akinchan Sarkar were also present at the press conference.
