20th Issue ECONOMIC REVIEW OF TRIPURA, 2018-19 Directorate of Economics & Statistics Planning (Statistics) Department Government of Tripura, Agartala. www.ecostat.tripura.gov.in 1 Sl.No. Chapter Page 1. ECONOMIC SITUATION 3 2. POPULATION 22 3. STATE INCOME 36 4. STATE FINANCE & PLANNING 43 a) State Finance 43 b) Planning 48 5. PRICE & COST OF LIVING 50 6. POVERTY, MANPOWER & EMPLOYMENT 57 7. FOOD, CIVIL SUPPLIES & CONSUMER AFFAIRS 74 8. AGRICULTURE AND ALLIED ACTIVITIES 81 a) Agriculture 81 b) Horticulture 97 c) Animal Resources 100 d) Fisheries 112 9. FORESTRY 119 a) Forestry 119 b) Rubber 133 10. CO-OPERATION 135 11. PANCHAYAT & RURAL DEVELOPMENT 156 a) Panchayat 156 b) Rural Development 158 12. URBANISATION 164 13. ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE 177 a) Power 178 b) Irrigation 184 c) Transport 187 d) Communication 190 e) Vehicle 191 f) Banking 197 14. INDUSTRIES & COMMERCE 199 a) Industries 199 b) Handloom, Handicrafts & Sericulture 221 c) Informaiton Technology 226 d) Tourism 235 15. EDUCATION 243 a) School Education 243 b) Higher Education 255 c) Social Education 268 d) Sports & Youth Affairs 271 16. HEALTH & FAMILY WELFARE 292 a) Health 292 b) Family Welfare 299 c) Drinking Water & Sanitation 304 17. WELFARE 307 a) Tribal Welfare 307 b) Schedule Caste Welfare 323 18. HOUSING 347 19. FUTURE ASSESSMENT & OUTLOOK 351 PART- II 359 20. STATISTICAL TABLES 360 2 PART-I 1) ECONOMIC SITUATION Background: The “Sankalp Se Siddhi” is a radical transformation for a New India by 2022-23. The State Government will strive for achieving an optimum level of public-private partnership and policies for more efficient delivery of public goods and services such as agriculture for doubling the farmers’ income, health, education, power, water supply, sanitation, rural and urban developments as well as infrastructure building including connectivity with the neighbouring country Bangladesh and ASEAN. Tripura is putting in place a 'development state' guided by the philosophy of “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas”. Economic performances, development strategies, action required and achievements of the State's economy during the fiscal year 2018-19 have been focused and analysed in this "Economic Review of Tripura, 2018- 19". It is the 20th un-interrupted time-series analysis, which put forward the chapters, especially for the fiscal year 2018-19, with previous year's references and data as far as possible. In this context, the State Government need to focus on the efficient delivery of public services, rooting out corruption and black economy, formalizing the economy, doubling farmers’ income and expanding its tax base, improving the ease of doing business, restoring health sector, improving education sector and stopping leakage of public fund through direct benefit transfers. The new initiatives and potential areas of development strategies covering all the districts as well as constraints faced in the process of economic prosperity of the State have also been analysed in the Economic Review, 2018-19. State profile: Tripura, erstwhile princely state, merged with the Indian Union after independence on 15th October 1949 and became a Union Territory without a legislature with effect from November 1, 1956 and a popular 3 ministry was installed in Tripura on July 1, 1963. Tripura became a full fledged State on the 21st January, 1972 and is the third smallest State in the Country, located in the North Eastern Region. The State is surrounded by the neighbouring country Bangladesh on its south, west and north. The length of its international border with Bangladesh is about 856 km (i.e. about 84 percent of its total border), while it has 53 km border with Assam and 109 km border with Mizoram. Forest area is over 60 percent of its land use statistics and predominant, leaving only 27 percent land for agricultural cultivation. A large part of the land is up-land / tilla land and hilly, with altitudes varying from 15 to 940 meters above sea level, though majority of the population lives in the plains. Tripura is connected with the rest of the Country by National Highway-8, which runs through the hilly terrains to Cachar District in Assam followed by zigzag roads of hilly regions of Meghalaya and then to Guwahati, the capital city of Assam, via Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya. Agartala, the capital city of Tripura, connected to the country's railway network in 2008 through a meter gauge track. Broad-Gauge conversion work from Lumding to Agartala and Sabroom via Badarpur has been completed in 2019. On 31st July 2016 the Hon’ble Union Railway Minister of India inaugurated the Agartala-New Delhi ‘Tripura Sundari Express’, linking the broad gauge with the rest of the country. Railway Minister of India, on 25th January 2017, also flagged-off a train to inaugurate a new broad-gauge railway line to connect Agartala with Udaipur, the district headquarter of Gomati, by video-conferencing from Delhi. On 5th January 2018, Minister of State for Railways flagged off another long distance luxury train namely ‘Humsafar Express’ connecting Agartala with Bangalore of South India. Broad-gauge railway network has been extended up to Belonia, The work for further extension of railway line from Belonia to Sabroom, the southernmost tips of the State, is likely to be completed in October 2019, which is close to Chittagong seaport in Bangladesh. NowAgartala‘Rajdhani Express’ is plying once a week between Agartala to Anand Vihar Terminal, New Delhi,‘Habibganj Express’ between Agartala to Habibganj, Bhopal and ‘Deoghar Express’ between Agartala to Deoghar once a week. 4 The State Government has been pursuing with the Ministry of Railway, Government of India for getting attractive benefits of the railway service. Governments of India and Government of Bangladesh laid the foundation stone for a project on 31st July 2016 for a new rail link to ease surface transport. India will build a 15-km railway track linking Agartala, the capital of Tripura with Akhaura , a border town and an important railway junction of Bangladesh connected to Chittagong sea port. The Indian Railway Construction Company would lay the new railway tracks on both sides of the border. Of the 15 km rail line, 5 km of tracks fall in the Indian Territory. The Government of Tripura has reorganised the administrative units in 2012 by creating 4-new Districts, 6-new Sub-Divisions and 5-new Blocks in-order to decentralise the administration for better and effective delivery of services and effective implementation and monitoring of the development programmes. The State has now 8-Districts, 23-Sub- Divisions, 58-Blocks and 1-Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) created under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. The prominent hill ranges of the State are Jampui, Sakhantang, Longtharai, Atharamura, Baramura, Deotamura, Belkum and Kalajhari. Betling Shib (939 meters), situated in the Jampui Range, is the highest peak of Tripura. The important forest products include sal, teak, gamai, gurjan and champa. The Gumati, Howrah, Dhalai, Muhuri, Feni and Juri are the major rivers which swell in monsoon but become shallow during the rest of the year. Tripura has a tropical climate and receives adequate rainfall during the monsoons. The State is situated between latitudes 22°56' and 24°32' North, and longitudes 90°09' and 92°20' East. It has an area of 10,491.69 sq. km. It has diverse range of topography, people, flora and fauna. Local flora and fauna bear a very close affinity and resemblance with floral and faunal components of Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese sub-regions. The State is located in the bio-geographic zone of 9B-North- East hills and possesses an extremely rich bio-diversity. There are 266- species of medicinal plants, 379-tree species, 320-shrubs, 581-herbs, 165-climbers, 16-climbing shrubs, 35-ferns, 45-epiphytes and 4- parasites. Moreover, there are 50-species endemic to Tripura. 2-primitive plants and 7-endangered plants are also found in Tripura. There are 90 mammal species in Tripura. 5 Effect of the partition of the country on Tripura: The partition of India in 1947 placed Tripura at a huge disadvantage in terms of connectivity. Prior to partition, the distance by road from Agartala to Kolkata was about 500 km. After partition, the route to Kolkata via Siliguri land corridor became 1,700 km long. The partition was perhaps the largest movement of evicted people in modern history. It witnessed a heavy influx of refugees into Tripura from erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, who arrived with little wealth in hand. On the otherhand, the partition resulted in a huge infrastructural and economic set- back for Tripura. The State's resources came under severe strain due to heavy influx of refugees into the State from erstwhile East Pakistan, mainly due to its long international border. It lost all its rail-head to the west, south and north-as they fell in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and the State was then cut off from India's railway network. Demographic profile: Tripura is the second most populous State in North-Eastern Region after Assam. As per Census 2011 population was 36,73,917, out of which 18,74,376 males and 17,99,541 females. The data of Census-2011 shows that Tripura ranks 18th in terms of density of population at all India level. Among the North-Eastern States, in terms of density, Tripura remained the second highest populous State after Assam. The population density of Tripura in 2011 was 350 persons per sq.km., which means that 45 more people live in a sq. km. area in the State than they lived a decade ago. The population density for all India in 2011 was 382. There is a positive improvement in sex ratio in the State as it rose from 945 (per 1000 males) in 1991 to 948 (per 1000 males) in 2001 and further to 960 in 2011.