The Assam government on Sunday approved MoUs amounting to over ₹1.22 lakh crore to be signed during the two-day Advantage Assam 2.0 investment summit to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday.
Modi will attend a mega jhumoir dance performance by over 8,000 youths from the state’s tea community on Monday followed by the investment summit the next day.
“We have held detailed deliberations today and approved over ₹1.22 lakh crore of MoUs to be signed during Advantage Assam 2.0 summit. Another ₹15,000cr worth of MoUs will be signed at the district level and all these proposals will be swiftly implemented on ground,” chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said while sharing details of the three-hour cabinet meeting and preparations for the jhumoir dance and summit to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday in Guwahati.
Also attending the mega dance and summit will be over 50 heads of missions, led by foreign minister S. Jaishankar, underlining the Centre’s active participation in the summit aimed at positioning Assam as a key investment destination.
He landed with a team of 42 envoys in Jorhat in a special plane on Sunday evening and then travelled to Kaziranga National Park in three buses.
After a safari in KNP on Monday, they will travel to Guwahati by road to attend the dance event to be held at the Sarusajai Stadium followed by the summit.
The presence of the envoys, the government is hoping, will give a big boost to tourism and could also lead to withdrawal of travel restrictions to Assam once they know the law and order situation has improved. Australia had recently withdrawn travel restrictions for its citizens barring four districts in Upper Assam.
A bullish Sarma said they have minutely gone through the proposals and had turned down proposals to the tune of ₹45,000,which appeared flimsy or casual.
“We go into the summit with very encouraging proposals and more would be announced by the central government during the course of the summit. MoUs will be both financial and non-financial like sending skilled manpower abroad,” he said.
The last investment summit was held in 2018.