The per capita income in Assam at Rs 67,620 is far lower than the national average of Rs 1,03,870, and to bridge this gap the State economy will have to grow at above double digit rate for at least a decade. To thresh out a strategy as to how to go about it, the 15th Finance Commission visited the State recently. In the course of deliberations during the 2-day visit, it became clear that Assam is yet to recover from the withdrawal of special category status. In a presentation by top State officials, this loss was pegged at around Rs 8,400 crore; it was shown that with no help from the Centre to compensate the loss, the State had to bear additional burden in implementing welfare schemes. Attributing this loss to the abolition of Planning Commission, the Finance Commission chairman NK Singh pointed out that his team’s brief was to study the ‘entire fiscal stability’ of the State. In turn, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal underlined that despite low per capita income and other poor socio-economic indicators, apart from facing challenges like insurgency, Assam got reduced share of central taxes under the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission. This besides, Assam has not had a happy experience with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) introduced last fiscal; Sonowal pointed out the estimated 15-20 percent loss in collections compared with expected revenue on month to month basis. Since the taxes subsumed under GST formed around 60 percent of the State’s tax revenue, obviously the going has been hard. Significantly, Sonowal claimed that apart from GST, there has been average 20 percent annual increase in last two years in the collection of other State government taxes.