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The Assam Cabinet has accorded the green light to investment proposals worth Rs 1.22 lakh crore ahead of the Advantage Assam 2.0 summit, scheduled to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday in the state's capital city Guwahati.
The summit is set to kick off with the approval of these Rs 1.22 lakh crore investments by the state Cabinet, and the figures are expected to soar during the Advantage Assam 2.0 summit days. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, addressing a press conference on Sunday, apprised reporters that the Cabinet rejected investment proposals worth about Rs 35,000-45,000 crore. The chief minister said the Cabinet rejected in what he termed as a "casual kind of proposal". "Whatever filmsy kind of proposal, we are not taking them for MoU. We will discuss this with them later. We don't want to create unnecessary euphoria among people. We want to be very very rational and reasonable." The Assam government deliberately decided to take all investment proposals to the Cabinet before inking the MoUs so that they could be properly scrutinised. This, the state government, thinks will ensure actual investments on the ground later, and help weed out the unfit proposals. "We had decided we won't sign investment proposals before taking them to the Cabinet," Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters at a press conference. "We will closely scrutinise the proposals." "We are also expecting investment announcements from big business leaders when they speak at the Advantage Assam summit," the chief minister hoped. Parallelly during the Advantage Assam 2.0 summit, around 2,600 MoUs will be signed at the district levels for small investments - investments worth from as low as Rs 5 lakh to upwards of Rs 50 crore. As per the chief minister, about Rs 15,900 worth MoUs have been confirmed so far, and they are in addition to the Rs 1.22 lakh investments approved by the state Cabinet. A similar Advantage Assam summit was held in Guwahati in 2018, under Sarbananda Sonowal's chief ministership, which also witnessed several big-ticket private and government investments in the state. The 2025 summit will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday morning, along with participation from several Union ministers - S Jaishankar, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman, Hardeep Puri, Sarbananda Sonowal, Pabitra Margherita, among others. Among the business leaders, N Chandrasekaran, Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Sajjan Jindal, Prashant Ruia, Anil Agarwal, Anil Kumar Chalamalasetty, among others, will be present at Advantage Assam 2.0 summit. High-level delegations from several countries -- Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Bhutan, and industrialists from Japan - will also converge in Guwahati. In run up to the summit, the state government has several roadshows in top Indian cities, besides overseas - the UK, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bhutan, and the UAE. The chief minister himself led the delegation to Bhutan, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. There will be 20 thematic sessions that will bring together industry leaders, subject matter experts, and government officials to discuss key growth opportunities. Today, the Assam Cabinet approved amending the biotechnology; textile and apparel policies of the state to attract more investors in these areas. (ANI)
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