Agartala, Dec 29 (IANS): Ahead of its 40th Statehood Day on January 21, Tripura will get four new districts, six sub-divisions and five rural development blocks in order to make government machinery more accessible to people in remote areas, officials said here on Wednesday.
"The new districts, sub-divisions and blocks would start functioning from Jan 6 in temporary offices. With their formation, tribals and people of rural and remote areas would come closer to the government," a senior revenue department official told reporters.
The official also said that the state government in separate notifications had appointed new district magistrates, superintendents of police, sub-divisional magistrates and block development officers for the new districts, sub-divisions and blocks.
The number of districts in Tripura will now rise to eight, while the number of subdivisions and blocks would increase to 23 and 45, respectively.
After Tripura's statehood, this is the second major reform of the administrative arrangement.
The erstwhile princely states of Tripura and Manipur had merged with India in 1949 and become union territories before getting the status of full-fledged states on Jan 21, 1972.
The main opposition Congress has welcomed the Left government's decision to increase number of districts and other administrative setup, though the party says it is "politically motivated ahead of the 2013 assembly polls".
"Aiming for the 2013 assembly elections, the Left Front government, after observing that their popularity is declining, has taken this reform measure to lure the electorate," opposition leader Ratan Lal Nath told reporters.
