Assam with the best ecosystem to reap rewards of investment

Dwina Barbaruah

(dwinakashyap@gmail.com)

Assam has been listed at the 4th spot among the 52 must visit places in 2025 by the world’s leading newspaper, The New York Times. And this augurs well for Assam in particular and the Northeast as a whole at a time when Assam is geared up to host the two-day Advantage Assam 2.0 - Investment and Infrastructure Summit 2025 on February 25 and 26.

The government of Assam is pulling out all stops to host the mega event in the capital city of Assam by organising roadshows not only in Mumbai, Delhi, and other metropolitan cities in the country but also abroad in countries like Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Dubai, and Thailand.

The man who is leading from the front is none other than Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He has held a series of meetings with industry captains, ambassadors, and high commissioners from 36 countries, including ASEAN, BIMSTEC, European and Nordic countries, investors, and trade associations to come, explore, and invest in Assam. His appeal has evoked an overwhelming response from one and all.

Advantage Assam 2.0 builds on the success of its first edition in 2018, which drew investment proposals worth Rs 1 lakh crore. Assam has attracted investments exceeding Rs 39,000 crore post-COVID-19 pandemic, reaffirming its status as an emerging investment hub. The upcoming summit aims to further propel Assam’s robust growth trajectory, establishing the state as a profitable and lucrative investment hub.

The event will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with several Union ministers, diplomats, industry leaders, and dignitaries in attendance. Highlighting Assam’s rich cultural heritage, over 8,000 young artistes from the state’s tea tribe community will perform the traditional Jhumur dance in the presence of Prime Minister Modi, adding a vibrant cultural dimension to the summit.

Chief Minister Sarma stressed that Advantage Assam 2.0 will be ‘pragmatic and theme-orientated,’ focusing on tangible outcomes rather than grandiose displays. It’s the right and pragmatic approach that is required to consolidate Assam’s economic potential and highlight its readiness for large-scale industrial investments.

Assam has been making rapid progress in infrastructure, health, education, and other sectors in the past 10 years. Rs. 1.5 lakh crore new infrastructure projects are coming up in the state with three more additional bridges over the Brahmaputra, a satellite city around Guwahati with help from the Singapore Government, a new railway line from Guwahati to Gelephu in Bhutan, besides a host of other projects that include the Guwahati Ring Road, the Kaziranga Elevated Corridor, the Tata Semiconductor Plant, an underground tunnel connecting Numaligarh to Gohpur, a bridge over the Brahmaputra connecting Guwahati and North Guwahati, and so on and so forth.

The infrastructure projects that have been built or are under various stages of construction, in so far as road, rail, air, and waterway connectivity are concerned, have catapulted Assam to a strong position for a global investment hub.

The Rs 27,000-crore semiconductor manufacturing facility by the giant Tata Group at Jagiroad signals Assam’s entry into high-tech industries.  The construction of the chip assembly plant has begun in right earnest and is expected to become operational this year and will create 27,000 direct and indirect jobs initially for the locals.

The plant will produce 4.83 crore chips per day using indigenously developed technologies. The microchips manufactured at the Tata plant will be used in vehicles, including electric vehicles, and computers.

A major part of the India Semiconductor Mission is to develop 85,000 talents, and altogether nine institutes in the Northeast have started working on developing talent for the semiconductor industry.

NIT Silchar in Assam, NIT Mizoram, NIT Manipur, NIT Nagaland, NIT Tripura, NIT Agartala, NIT Sikkim, and NIT Arunachal Pradesh, and two institutes in Meghalaya—North Eastern Hill University and NIT—are involved in talent development for semiconductor industry plants.

With alarming pollution posing a great health hazard worldwide, the government of Assam has taken the right initiative by embarking on clean energy and renewable energy. Chief Minister Sarma has made it clear in the course of his meetings and interactions with diplomats, industry leaders, and other stakeholders that henceforth industries coming up in Assam will draw their energy from green power sources, including Tata’s Semiconductor Plant.

With a vibrant and robust economy, Assam is fast emerging as India’s powerful growth engine with a remarkable GSDP growth rate of 12.5 percent, which is far above the national average. The GSDP of Assam is projected to be US\$77.67 billion (Rs.6,43,089 crore) in 2024-25. This is a 13% increase from 2023-24. The cumulative FDI inflows in Assam from October 2019 to June 2024 were US\$21.47 million. 

Apart from a strong economy, the state has also turned out to be an educational hub with reputed institutions, including IIM, the Indian Institute of Technology, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, several state, central, and private varsities, agricultural universities, and upcoming institutions like the NIELIT University campus. The state has positioned itself as a medical hub with a number of state medical colleges, AIIMS, super speciality cancer hospitals, heart institutes, and a wide network of district hospitals, CHCs, and PHCs, besides private hospitals. The health sector offers immense opportunities for investment.

Assam plays a significant role in the production of crude oil and natural gas, with the state contributing 14% of total crude oil production and 10% of total natural gas production in the country. There is huge potential for investments in hydrocarbons, with more than an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of crude oil and 156 billion cubic metres of natural gas in the state. Yet, around 58% of these hydrocarbon reserves are yet to be explored and extracted.

Though state-owned company ONGC and some private companies like Vedanta’s Cairn Oil & Gas are in the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons, there is still ample scope for other private and foreign players to make forays into the hydrocarbon sector in the wake of the government reducing the “No Go” areas in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by almost 99 percent, thus freeing approximately 1 million square kilometres for exploration and production activities. That is not all. The government has launched the Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 to increase oil and gas production in the Northeast Region. The government plans to create a 5,000 km ‘mega’ petroleum pipeline grid across the region. 

The government is infusing capital expenditure of around Rs.61,000 crore for increasing production in the coming years. The goal is to make Assam a hydrocarbon hub to meet the petroleum requirements of Southeast Asian countries.

In tourism, Assam has huge potential, and that is why the state is eyeing investment in this sector during the summit. The state’s abundant natural resources, flora and fauna, biodiversity hotspots, unique ecosystems dotted with national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers flowing majestically, and delectable cuisine and rich cultural traditions must be tapped to their optimal level to increase tourist footfalls. The tourism sector, if harnessed properly, can be a major revenue earner, for Assam has everything to offer to adventure tourists with adrenaline rushing in their veins and those yearning for spirituality.

Assam has the requisite skilled manpower and capability to deliver and the wherewithal to ensure that those willing to invest get similar incentives as being offered by leading states of the country. Towards this end, the government has taken the right decision to create a corpus fund for production-linked incentives for a whopping amount of Rs 25,000 crore to woo domestic and foreign investors for ushering in rapid industrialization in the state.

The Government of Assam is actively engaged in discussion with the Ministry of Defence for the declaration of the adjoining areas of Guwahati towards Nagaon as a defence corridor. The state has immense scope for investment in the defence sector if a defence manufacturing hub along with facilities to service military equipment, tanks, and ordnance is set up. Like Jammu & Kashmir, the Northeast has the maximum deployment of the army because the region is strategically located, bordering several countries. 

The Centre must declare Assam as the third defence corridor after Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. After all, more than half of the ammunition of the defence forces is in the Northeast. Where there is demand, there should also be local supply. If any threat comes to the chicken neck, also known as the Siliguri corridor (which connects the Northeast with mainland India), all the defence equipment should be readily available in Assam.

Assam offers immense opportunities for investment in key sectors like fragrance and flavours, such as agar, food and beverages, renewable energy, hydrocarbons, food processing, rubber plantation, and mobility and logistics. 

Assam’s locational advantage as the gateway to BBN and ASEAN countries—industries can access 30 percent of the world population across 14 countries in just 3 hours of flying time from Guwahati. With improved infrastructure, including new roads and an international airport in Guwahati, the state is set for a major expansion this year that will increase its capacity manifold and thus help in establishing stronger links throughout the region. Rich natural resources, reliable and robust connectivity, skilled manpower, investor-friendly policy, ease of doing business, and a robust industrial infrastructure, and last but not least, a conducive atmosphere, are the key reasons favouring the state as an investment destination.

With Assam no longer a land of ‘lahe lahe’ (slow-moving) and on a roll with a faster growth trajectory, the state can look forward to attracting substantial investments in the upcoming Advantage Assam Summit 2.0 and beyond. Assam is well on its course to becoming an Aatmanirbhar or Vikshit State by 2047. Where there is a strong political will, there is a way!