Development / Assam

GUWAHATI, June 13 – The State government will soon create a special department to look after the welfare of the tea tribes in Assam. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has agreed to the demand, raised by the Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association (ATTSA), for an exclusive department. “There will be a separate department for tea tribes,” Gogoi told reporters today at Rajiv Bhawan while referring to his meeting with ATTSA leaders yesterday. “We have agreed to it,” he said. The tea students have genuine grievances especially in the engineering and medical sectors, he said while emphasising his government...

GUWAHATI, June 11: The Economic Survey of Assam, 2004, which was released today by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi contains mixed news for the people: whereas it projects an impressive growth rate of GDP and per capita income of the State, it warns that the industrial sector needs to be revved up to accelerate this growth.

The report has predicted an advance figure for the State’s GDP at more than 6 per cent for 2003-04, a quantum jump from the ‘quick’ estimate of 3.9 per cent for 2002-03. It may be mentioned here that the corresponding figure for 1994-95 was 2.8 per cent, which had gone up to 3.2...

NEW DELHI, June 11 – Assam Government has sought Rs 170 crore incentive package from the Union Commerce Ministry for attracting investors to buy the Assam Tea Corporation (ATC).

In a memorandum to the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Kamal Nath, the State Government has petitioned him on a whole range of issues ranging from trade with ASEAN countries, Inland Transport assistance to sharp fall in price of tea to matter relating to waiver of excise duty. The State Industries Minister, Bhubaneswar Kalita who was in the capital, met the Union Commerce and Industries Minister yesterday and...

Guwahati/New Delhi, June 10: Assam’s preparations for the 2005 National Games received a major jolt with the only private firm in talks with Dispur to construct the National Games village having almost thrown in the towel. The back-off comes in less than 24 hours of the cabinet approving the land price recommended by the committee headed by chief secretary J.P. Rajkhowa.

The cabinet last night approved the Rs 5 lakh per katha recommended by the Rajkhowa Committee for the 70 bigha plot belonging to the water resources department on which the village is supposed to come up.

Sources said...

Guwahati, June 9: Almost seven years after militants cut short Sanjoy Ghose’s pathbreaking work in Majuli, Assam police are set to launch a campaign to fill the vacuum created by the abduction and murder of the man who roused the islanders out of slumber and made them aware of their rights. “The social mobilisation campaign of Assam, to be launched shortly, aims to bring about a sea change in the lives of people of the world’s largest river island,” director-general of police P.V. Sumant said.

He described the mobilisation campaign as an effort to involve police personnel in the task of...

GUWAHATI, June 9 – Assam has made remarkable progress in the drive to increase its green cover. In fact, it is now among the few states in the country that have a forest cover well beyond generally targeted 33 per cent. This year alone, the State has added 40,000 hectares of new forests. Announcing this today, Assam Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Pradyut Bordoloi, said that the latest state of the Forest Report of the Forest Survey of India has found that Assam has a forest cover of 35.3 per cent. The national forest cover is 20 per cent. The data, based on satellite imagery...

SHILLONG, June 8 – Among the north-eastern States, Assam is the highest contributor of income-tax. Out of a total of Rs 590 crore revenue collected from income-tax in the entire North East in the 2002-03 financial year, Assam alone accounted for a whopping Rs 509 crore, Commissioner of Income-Tax, Guwahati, TM Das informed. In the current financial year there was a substantial increase in revenue collection which stood at 12,000 crore from the region, in which Assam’s contribution is again expected to be substantial, Das said, addressing a press conference at the Shillong Press Club on Monday...

GUWAHATI, June 8 – At a time when the Assam Government is demanding declaration of floods and erosion in the State as a national problem, more than 30 flood and erosion protection schemes are pending at various stages of completion because of the failure of the Centre to release funds. State Water Resources Department sources told The Assam Tribune that 37 major schemes are at various stages of implementation, as the Central Government has not released funds for completion of the same. Sources said that the major schemes that could not be completed due to paucity of funds include the Palasbari...

Dhubri, June 7: It finds mention in the Directory of Asian Wetlands as a global biodiversity hotspot, but Sareswar Beel, 15 km off Dhubri town, has yet to make it to the Assam forest department’s list of priorities. Repeated pleas by non-governmental organisations to conserve this repository of ecological diversity have fallen on deaf ears. Nature’s Friend, one of the organisations that have been trying to protect the wetland, advocates turning it into a bird sanctuary.

Encroachment upon the adjoining forest reserve, rampant denudation of the green cover and heavy siltation caused by erosion...

GERUKAMUKH (Dhemaji), June 7 – For the power-starved Assam, the delay in the projected commissioning date of the Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Power Project, an undertaking of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), is bad news. Though dams in the seismically active North East are a cause of serious concern among sundry environmental groups, the positive side of the proposed power station is that once completed, it will feed an additional 2000 megawatts of power into the electric grids of the region.

And while the environmental groups are fuming and fretting over their...