Assam - Government
Assam holds a unicameral legislative structure that is comprised of 126-member Assam Assembly. These members are elected for a period of 5 years and the assembly is led by the Speaker who is the often the member of ruling party. The state has a total of 126 constituencies. The political parties of Assam put their candidates on the seats in the election. The Chief Minister (CM) is the elected head of the government and reports to the Governor of Assam. The Governor is appointed by the Central government and has the power to remove the CM. The state is divided into three regions. Every region is headed by a commissioner. Under each commissioner, there are several administrative units called Districts.
Peace and stability are important to complement and support good governance. The Government has sought to restore the confidence of the people, reduce the level of violence, and promote an environment in which development can take place. Two sets of issues that, if not unique to Assam, have certainly been exceptional in the duration of their existence, the intensity of their occurrence, and the extent of their impact.
The first of these is the fact of decades of unrest, agitation, and at a later stage, insurgency. While the development of these is not necessarily sequential, it is true that grievances, unless addressed, will lead to more intense forms of protest. Inequities, lack of development, perceived discrimination and lack of opportunities for employment can, and have, contributed to discord and strife. Such situations are rarely, if ever, conducive to development. They necessitate reorientation of financial and administrative resources towards maintenance of law and order, constrict the flow of funds for development, raise uncertainty and economic risk, discourage enterprise and investment, lower employment and income opportunities, and impact adversely on governance and the ability of the State and its functionaries to provide basic services and respond to felt needs. Paradoxically, they may end up accentuating the very grievances that they sought to highlight and address.
Secondly, the State has functioned for over a decade now under severe fiscal stress. Some of its causes are not atypical of many States in a similar predicament – negative savings from investment in the public sector, growing revenue expenditures – on salaries, wages, pensions and establishments, the increasing cost and scale of public debt, and the lack of buoyancy in State revenues. The uncommonly adverse circumstances of Assam acquire significance, given the challenges posed to peace and stability, and the fact that Assam’s growth has been stunted in this period, to the point where it is beginning to lag seriously behind most of the States of the country. In simple terms, there is a mismatch, between the resources needed to provide basic services, maintain assets, promote growth and development, and create infrastructure, and the resources available to the State of Assam.
Lending credence to the State’s stated position of encouraging the decentralisation of power and decision making, and devolving responsibility and empowering people at the grass root level, elections to Panchayati Raj institutions were held in December 2001, after a gap of six years. The intention is to confer responsibilities for developmental activities to the people who are likely to benefit from them. This devolution enjoins upon the people a sense of belonging and pride, and also makes them accountable for their own development and for the choices they make.
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