Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently announced that the state government will construct all-weather roads in 800 tea gardens across the state, allocating Rs 800 crore for the project. The decision, approved by the state cabinet, aims to improve connectivity in the tea gardens. Each road will be built at a cost of Rs 1 crore, totaling Rs 800 crore for the entire project.
In addition to the road construction, the cabinet approved a proposal to allocate Rs 8 crore to each school to upgrade the infrastructure of 126 state-run educational institutes, with a total expenditure exceeding Rs 1,000 crore.
“We have set a target to upgrade the building infrastructure of 500 government high schools during my tenure. Already, work for 126 schools was ongoing, and with today’s decision, infrastructure in 252 schools is being upgraded,” Sarma stated. The government plans to upgrade the infrastructure of an additional 1,000 Assamese medium high schools during its next tenure after the 2026 assembly polls.
The cabinet also approved guidelines for the installation and maintenance of the Real-Time Data Acquisition System (RTDAS), 2024. This initiative aims to facilitate the collection of hydrological data for effective water resource planning and flood forecasting in critical river basins across the state. “A 10-year tentative roadmap for installing nearly 800 RTDAS units for data collection across Assam has been approved,” the Chief Minister added.
Furthermore, Sarma highlighted the government’s initiative to open state-run coaching institutes for NEET preparation for poor and middle-class students. Currently, two centers are operational in Dibrugarh and Tezpur. This year, three more will open in Nalbari, Silchar, and Jorhat, followed by Pathsala and Bongaigaon. “We plan to open one such center in every district,” Sarma said.