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Assam’s transport infrastructure has improved but it is still inadequate. More needs to be
done.

While Assam could have developed industries to supply the NorthEast market itself, lack of infrastructure within the North-East in the early decades after
Independence prevented such development

The Partition of the country imposed on Assam and the North-East a huge transport and
access disadvantage.

This requires that after five
years of 6 per cent growth rate Assam’s economy has to grow by 2 percentage points
faster than the Indian economy.

Assam should aim to catch up with the rest of the country

A minimum growth rate of 6 per cent per year can be realized over
the next five years which will reduce rural poverty from 40 per cent to 28 per cent in five
years

Assam’s economy has to accelerate and catch up with the
rest of the country

From a per capita income above the national average in 1951, it is
now barely 60 per cent of it

The most striking fact of Assam’s economic development is that it is falling behind the
rest of the country

It will have to put its fiscal house in order. A
chapter deals with how to reorient fiscal strategies towards economic development.