Assam - Struggling Economy
North east belt of India consists of the following sister state Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura. All these states are abundant with respect to natural resource. Assam, it always reminds me of home and brings a smile to my face. Assam being my hometown holds a special place in my heart. But sadly these states have nothing to boast about when we talk of economy. Though Assam is growing but still it has a long way to go.
Assam’s economy is majorly dependent on agriculture. Tea, Oil refineries, tobacco industries etc form the source of income for the people of Assam. What is the future of Assam and all these less prioritised states? Central govt is least bothered about its falling economy and thus more or less leaves it to its own plight.
There are people employed by state govt-run industries like the Agro based industries (primarily into distribution of agro products including tractors, pesticides etc giving rebate to the farmer’s etc) among few other sectors who are waiting for their salary for not months but years now but are still working with the hope that someday there dues will be paid off. But the question is will they really be paid off? Often I wonder how they live and the question sends shivers down my spine.
Assam is the world's single largest tea growing region, producing more than 1,500,000 pounds of tea annually. But as tea prices have fallen and tea plantations have closed down it has resulted in a more deteriorating situation. Tea worker’s are losing there jobs and those who are involved with this industry are leading a miserable life with a bare minimum wage, which is hardly sufficient for sustaining their families.
The Assam film and music industry has been booming since the last decade. I have watched 2 flicks “Hiya Diya Niya” and “Nayak”, an average flick, but still I enjoyed both.
As far as the information technology sector is concerned, there is this STPI in Guwahati. But by and large nothing is really happening in this domain, except for the NIIT, Aptech and a handful of other computer course academies in every nook and corner of the state, mostly surviving by giving basic computer education, stuck with windows 98 and some being honest with DOS and Windows 3.1. There courses include Word, little bit of Excel and whole lot of stress is given on Paintbrush apart from how to create and send an E-mail. voila there you are, a computer literate !!
Oil refineries are also not being able to generate a handsome profit because of the ever increasing price of crude oil and lack of proper infrastructure to market their products.
But Asaam is also making progress with few central sector projects like, Guwahati Refinery, Bokajan Cement factory, Oil India Ltd., ONGC Ltd., HFC Ltd. HPC, Bongaigaon Refinery and Petro-Chemical project and more recently Numaligarh Refinery etc. as a result of economic planning in India. The State Government also chipped in the process by promoting a few large industries in pulp and paper, petrochemicals, fertilizer, sugar and textile sector. In between there have been a sizeable number of small scale units. More recently a good number of medium scale projects too have come up particularly with the support of State level financial Institutions. [ Source: http://www.techno-preneur.net/new-timeis/assam1/industry-policy-assam.htm ][sic]
Above all the legendary “bandh” system in Assam, which govt employees seems to enjoy every bit of, has paralysed Assam in every respect. You can hear all kind of bandh's starting from chakka bandh to any sort and range of “bandh”. One can do his doctorate in this topic from Assam. I sometimes wonder if I don’t feel like going to office, all I have to do is spread news about some hoax bandh and for real it will be “bandh”.
posted by mahboob at 10:56 AM
14 Comments:
Hi,
It is a bad news that Assam is still struggling Economically.I do think that there is a bit of development in the socio economic field .Now people realised that waiting for the government job is not a solution and many unemployed youth have come up with small scale industries,self business,poultry farms,small tea gardens and transport business.As we know that for a developed society the CORRUPTION of the state should be minimum if not none but in case of Assam I think its maximum.I think the people of Assam should try to be self employed.
There is a very good new for the people of Assam-the ASSAM GAS CRACKER ,Lepetkatta Dibrugarh will be in working in a few years.It would create more than 100,000 jobs directly and indirectly.
Joi Ai Asom!
Promothash Boruah
Thanks for the input promothash. Thats was a good insight. I agree with you that corruption has taken its toll in our system and is badly effecting the system and that it should be minimized. But we are the people who encourages this system by giving bribes. So I believe we have to be rigid about this to make a change.
"AAMI AXOMIA MAHOU DUKHIA"
The most boasted age old saying, for/used by ASSAMESSE PEOPLE seems to have lost its charm long back and it no longer amuses me, or any AXOMIA (to be more precise).It is very sad to see the current plight of ASSAM struggling with economy, terrorism, corruption, division and endless other issues.
I don't know where is the problem and what can be done to improve it? Still considered a major repository of unexplored natural resourses, why is it that we are still lagging far behind and so backward? Why is that the now parents of ASSAM prefers to send their children to other states to get not only higher education but also primary education? Why is it that I am writing this blog using the computer of a company I am working for, in Gurgaon (HARYANA) and not in ASSAM?
These are few of the questions that bothers me every now and then. Something has to be done right now otherwise the day is not far when the above mentioned age old saying would just be used as a mockery by others.
"WAKE UP AXOM, OUR MOTHER NEEDS US NOW...!!!"
Sapan Deka
Thanks Sapan for your input. I agree with you that the quality of education is not up to the mark in Assam. Many parents send their children outside state at a very elementary level of schooling for better education. So we can conclude one thing for sure that they don’t have faith in the quality of education in Assam. Private tuitions are a must now.
Another aspect is terrorism. This is one big hurdle in the path of progress. People get threatening/demands even before they start with their operation, which is also one of the facts that have set back the foreign or other investors from coming into this region. From this can we conclude that Assamesse people don’t want any progress in their state which they love so much?
It is very sad news for us to know that instead of assam is one of the single leading tea trading state still we are strugling with our economy, i think this is due to the lack of inconsiousness of the governement. I think one way we can improve this by improving the educational system of Assam, need to aware of people about the latest technology. It is only be possible if our government is enough pro-active.The major and foremost problem that we are currently facing is the terrorism issue due to which rest of the world treated every assamese as a terrorist. We can control this :
1) By improvment of infrastructure.
2) By creating more jobs in the governement as well as in private sector.
3) And also main thing is to remove corruption.
So, there is a time now to grown up everyone think practically so that we can create our "Sonar Axom", no body should pointing that we are belong to rest of india.
Sorry to update this again:
It is very sad news for us to know that instead of assam is one of the single leading tea trading state still we are strugling with our economy, i think this is due to the lack of inconsiousness of the governement. I think one way we can improve this by improving the educational system of Assam, need to aware of people about the latest technology. It is only be possible if our government is enough pro-active.The major and foremost problem that we are currently facing is the terrorism issue due to which rest of the world treated every assamese as a terrorist. We can control this :
1) By improvment of infrastructure.
2) By creating more jobs in the governement as well as in private sector.
3) And also main thing is to remove corruption.
So, there is a time now to grown up everyone think practically so that we can create our "Sonar Axom", no body should pointing that we are belong to rest of india
Last line but not least
Asom aamaar rupahi aai gunar ru nai sekh bhaarotare purba dikhat surjya utha dekh
Gotei jiban bisarileo alekh jiban raati,
o dhanya aamaar eikhan dekh eiye mur janambhumi..
kuldip Gayan
Even in the 21st century, the situation is so pathetic in Assam. My sister is appearing in BSc exam and there is no electricity and water supply at home.
Every time I visit Guwahati, I see no fundamental change in the attitude of the people. People are so intolerant, indisciplined and rude and to add to that there is no end to the dadagiri of young people.
They are still fighting over the isse whether to let outsides so called Biharis, Bengalies to stay there. Come on, stop being "frog-in-the-well" and see world outside Assam.
Who is going to invest in Assam ? At least the situation in WB is better, the chief minister of WB is trying to attract investors to set up companies in WB. I don't think the ministers in Assam even understand the concept.
This was excellent :)The last para abt 'bandh' was quite interesting. It reminded me of Bongaigaon where may b 4 days in a week are bandh...n interestingly very few has any idea why n who has given a bandh but everyone will follow it :)
Ya its true. Half the time I never came to know who has given the bandh and for what good reason. Actually after a point of time you tend to lose your interest on it, just because there are so many in such short duration.
I agree with you Dhiman. Things are going haywire. People are becoming rude and less co-operative. The ministers can definitely make a change if they actually give it a whole hearted effort. But...
I agree with Dhiman on outsider concepts prevailing in Assam...Not a single day in Hyderabad or Chennai I felt as if I belong to somewhere else or I m not a part of the city...But I wonder n feel a bit sad for the adverse situation n conditioning of the common people in Assam...Though I Love the place n respect its culture as much as any of my other Assamese friends...
:)
Basant N. Singh
mahboob da whatever u have mention in ur blog is correct but partially. Yes Assam is today struggling in various department but its improving. Now Assam have far better infrastructure then before. We talk about economy but how the economy is creating? How the money will flow we never discuss. Sometimes we discussed this matter but we hardly discuss the industrial development and the related aspects it. We must know how to generate it. How many of us want to go back and do something over there how many of us dare to show the mistake of the govt. I will give u a simple example every year thousands of students came to various part of country. They not only bring our culture and the human recourse of Assam but also money too. crore of rupees go out of Assam every year and Assam lost a huge amount of money. Assam facing human recourse also how many of us want to go back or want to invest money in Assam? How many people discussing and provide the knowledge to government regarding various aspects of Assam. No state is better but we can develop them but we need passion for do something for the state. Assam is not only struggling but also entire northeast is struggling. i m happy that u r not stick with the talk and never do attitude and bring our attention to it. I hope u listen to ur inner voice and write the blog. Actually in this matter we can write 100 pages blog.
but bringing the attention of the people is important. maje maje blog pothai thakibo bhal lage enekuwa topic buror uporot discuss kori.dingir uporort thaka matha tu thoka jen lage.
@dipankar thanks for your analysis. Yes I do agree with you that mostly we engage ourself in complaining only but with every complaint we should also propose an alternate solution to make things better.
stay with india you get more
We all who r staying out of oxom we khow what the reason is , we all how rich we r n i know we all cry when we go back home looking how we r exploted
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