Agartala: Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb has assured that he will review the issue of the 638 outsourced and contractual employees of Tripura Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project whose services were discontinued recently.

Forest management and livelihood projects, funded by JICA, are operational in the state since 2007.

Joybindu Saha, one of the retrenched employee, said they had met Deb at a Janatar Durbar (peoples' court) on Wednesday evening. Janatar Durbar is a unique initiative that the chief minister had started soon after coming to power to connect with the masses twice a week.

"We were troubled by the discontinuation notification, issued on April 20. Earlier, we came to know that finance department had given concurrence to extend our service till September this year. The sudden notification discontinuing our services was unexpected," Saha said.

On March 31, the finance department had concurred a proposal to extend the services of 638 contractual personnel engaged in the project for six months.

A source in the department said the second phase of the project is expected to commence later this year where these personnel would be engaged.

The terminated personnel include 47 livelihood coordinators and community organisers, 447 field facilitators, 136 documentation and office assistants. Four regular employees were also engaged in the project.

Saha said a group of the sacked contractual and outsourced employees had tried to meet principal chief conservator of forests and outgoing project director G.S. Raju, chief secretary Sanjeev Ranjan and others since the notification was issued.

"We could not meet anyone. We were surprised as the chief minister agreed to meet us. He assured us that he would review the project report and take necessary action," Rajesh Saha, another sacked employee, said.

The first phase of the project was completed in March last year. The previous Left Front government had extended the service tenure of the employees, engaged in two phases, by six months each. It had also allocated Rs 45 crore on provisional basis in October last year. The second extension ended in March.

According to a report, the joint forest was developed in 79.54 hectares with involvement of 1,505 self-help groups.