CORRESPONDENT
AGARTALA: After regional political parties, the CPI(M) and Congress also joined the opposition to the state government's decision to replace the Permanent Resident of Tripura Certificate (PRTC) with a school certificate. The state government recently decided that the PRTC would no longer be a mandatory requirement for getting a job in Tripura and that a certificate showing five years of continuous schooling between Class I and Class XI in any school in the state would serve the purpose.
Both the CPI(M) and Congress expressed apprehension that the new system would open the floodgates for outsiders to get jobs in the state, depriving local unemployed youths. CPI(M) state secretary and Leader of the Opposition Jiten Choudhury said the previous Left Front government had introduced the PRTC requirement to safeguard the interests of Tripura's job seekers and that the new decision by the present government would remove that protection.
Tripura Pradesh Congress spokesperson Prabir Chakraborty also criticised the Cabinet decision, alleging that replacing the PRTC requirement with proof of five years of schooling in Tripura could facilitate manipulation through fraudulent school certificates, enabling outsiders to obtain government jobs.
Drawing comparisons with other northeastern states, Chakraborty said Assam had implemented measures such as domicile requirements linked to family residence, while several states in the region had safeguards such as the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system to protect local interests.
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