ProMASS News
Agartala, September 02, 2019: The State Assembly passed two Bills – namely, The Tripura Road Development Cess Amendment Bill 2019 and The Prisoners’ Tripura second Amendment Bill 2019 – today. These Bills were placed in the State Assembly on the first day of the on-going Monsoon session (August 30 last). Also, tea export proposal to Bangladesh inched forward.
Taking part in the discussion on Road Development Cess Amendment Bill, Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma said, collected amount of cess will be spent on development and maintenance of the roads. He also said, cess will be levied on OTPC’s outbound electricity. Dev Varma said, State was incurring losses as no cess was levied on power produced by the OTPC and henceforth, cess will be applicable to 73 per cent power which OTPC sells to other states. CPIM MLA and former Minister Badal Choudhury criticized cess imposition on OTPC and alleged, it will put financial pressure on people.
Meanwhile, speaking the media Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said, Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has agreed on principle to import tea from Tripura. Notably, Deb had already initiated steps to materialize the proposal to sell Tripura tea to Bangladesh as this will come as a boon for Tripura’s century old tea industry. Deb also thanked the Prime Minister for placing curbs on import of incense sticks (agarbatti) and said the decision will benefit the incense stick producers of the State immensely.
