From Taker to Giver

For the first time in the history of Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has made a very significant positive statement, one that can bring about an unbelievable change shortly. Sarma has said that he wants Assam to stand as a state that gives more priority to how it will contribute to the development of the country rather than how much it can seek. According to him, strongly supported by the policies of the Union Government, and particularly the support provided by Prime Minister Modi, Assam is heralding a new dawn for its development. As reported in the lead news story on the front page of the Sunday edition of this newspaper, the chief minister has coined a new mantra, it being “Don’t ask, but start giving for national development.” Claiming that the state is currently moving in that direction, the Chief Minister has also said that Assam now wants to stand as a state that gives more priority to how it will contribute to the development of the country. Looking back, one finds that within a few years after independence, Assam has been playing the role of a taker, if not a beggar, in terms of economic development. Yet, there was a time when the per capita income of Assam was better than that of the national average. It may read like an old, oft-repeated story, but the fact remains that Assam was one of the few states of the country that had witnessed industrial development way back in the mid-19th century. That was the time when commercial cultivation of tea had begun in Assam, which was also for the first time in the whole world. (In China, tea cultivation then was a homestead practice.) The discovery of petroleum led to the establishment of the world’s second oil refinery in Assam. There was also a time when timber produced in Assam met more than half of the requirements of railway track sleepers in the entire subcontinent. Coal produced in the province used to meet the requirements of the entire tea industry, apart from the needs of the railways in the region. Yet, while the first Partition of Bengal in 1905 had prompted lakhs of poverty-stricken Muslim peasants to Assam, independence and the Partition of 1947 sent in a fresh flush of immigrants, both incidents causing the population of Assam to increase at an unbelievable pace. While the immigrants occupied land meant for tribals and land meant for use of the Brahmaputra during the monsoon months, the fresh influx from erstwhile East Pakistan and present-day Bangladesh created more problems, all leading to a serious impact on the state’s economy. With more mouths to feed and with scarce development funds also going to these people who multiply at an unbelievable rate, the state’s economy has only gone from bad to worse. A situation had come when Assam even lost self-sufficiency in rice production. Fortunately, things have started changing in the past few years, first attaining self-sufficiency and then becoming surplus in rice. While that is only an indicator, official records also show that the per capita income of Assam has drastically improved, and so have the various human development indicators. As pointed out by the chief minister, Assam has, in the past few years, made significant strides on all fronts, from setting up new industries to attracting fresh investments. To accelerate the pace further, as he pointed out, the government is unlocking possibilities in every sector with customised incentives, stable government policies, a safe and secure environment, booming infrastructure, and seamless connectivity to attract more investments to Assam. In this context, it is also important to note that the Assam government has recently approved the Assam Action Plan on Biotech Industries, besides approving the Assam Startups and Innovation Policy. As pointed out by the Chief Minister, through the startup policy, the government wants to provide various fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to encourage entrepreneurs. The goal of the government is to support 5,000 startups and create one lakh job opportunities in the next five years. It is with this objective that the state government has focused on the Advantage Assam 2.0 Summit, which has the potential to shape the state’s future industrial development, besides setting in the inflow of investment. That the chief minister has left no stone unturned to attract investors from across the globe to the upcoming Advantage Assam 2.0 Summit is in itself the prime indicator that it is a serious and sincere effort towards converting Assam from a taker state to a giver state. The presence of the Tatas in a big way in the form of the semiconductor project coming up at Jagiroad is in itself a flag that Assam can wave to pave the way for more investors to choose the state as their next destination.