The Tripura government has decided to provide a “dress allowance” for 22,201 Tripura State Rifles (TSR) and Tripura police personnel, law minister Ratan Lal Nath said here on Wednesday.

“We have taken this decision in the cabinet meeting. The government will spend Rs 20.4 crore annually for this. This is a first time in the Northeast,” Nath said.

He said the council of ministers has decided to hike the dress allowances of TSR and police personnel according to the Centre’s norms and the notification for it would be issued soon.

The amount will be transferred directly to their respective accounts.

“Although there are 68 items for TSR and 32 items for police personnel, the state government will purchase 20 to 30 items for each section. The amount for rest of the materials would be directly transferred to their accounts,” Nath said.

Nath said there are 131 subedars, 317 nayak subedars, 3,747 havildar nayaks, and 8,697 riflemen who will get Rs 10,000 each per annum.

While there are 124 inspectors and 581 sub-inspectors who will get Rs 8,500 each per annum, 8,604 assistant sub-inspector to constable-rank personnel will get Rs 7,500 each per annum.

The government will bear a total expenditure of Rs 20,40,97,000 for the 22,201 TSR and police personnel.

He said the previous government had spent just Rs 3,000 and Rs 1,500 annually, for the TSR and police personnel respectively.

“The erstwhile Left Front government did not take any proper measure for the Tripura State Rifles and police personnel of the state and therefore on various occasions complaints came to the government over the dress code and kits being unavailable to the jawans. We have decided to provide an allowance to the state’s jawans on a par with the central government employee’s scale. Now it would become easy for them to get their kits on a regular basis,” Nath said.