Agartala, June 11(TIWN): The state government would soon initiate the process of making more regrouped villages to reach basic amenities to far flung villages of the state, Minister for Rural Development Naresh Jamatia said here today.

Speaking to reporters at the civil secretariat at Agartala on Wednesday, the minister said that the Department for Rural Development (RD) currently operates 21 regrouped villages in different sub-divisions to channelize the trend of shifting cultivation into eco-friendly settled cultivation.  

“We have got more distant habitations in the rural areas which are still devoid of basic amenities like safe drinking water and electricity. We are planning to initiate a process to operationalize around 15 more regrouped villages”, Jamatia said.

A total of 75 habitations are currently without any source of drinking water across the state, Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation (DWS) Ratan Bhowmik said earlier this year. He added that work is currently in progress to bring all of these under drinking water supply cover within May, 2014.

Sources said that state’s ‘regrouped model village’ originated during the tenure of former Director General of Police BL Vora to detach public support to armed tribal militant groups. The project was started in the model of Mizoram's 'cluster village’ which was strategically designed to curb armed insurgency.