GUWAHATI: A 12-member US delegation of the Professional Fellows Program Outbound 2019 called on Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal at Brahmaputra State Guest House and held discussions on various issues on Tuesday.
Notably, under Professional Fellows Program Outbound programme eleven participants from across India visit United States twice every year in spring and fall seasons for six weeks to exchange ideas, strategies, and best practices in the legislative process and policy-making. Similarly, professional fellows from US also visit India for a brief period of time as a part of the exchange program in order to increase their understanding of the Indian governance system, legislative process and society. The delegation engages with key stakeholders of the government apart from holding dialogues with civil society and undertaking field trips to comprehend the ethos of the Indian society.
This year the delegation has been visiting the cities of Delhi, Lucknow, Guwahati and Shillong. As part of the tour, the team members today met the chief minister and held interaction on the Act East Policy, success stories of Assam, immigrant issues and challenges faced by the state government.
Highlighting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s thrust to develop Assam and NE region through Act East Policy and state government’s endeavor to shape the state as the gateway to South East Asia, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal elaborated the roadmap to capture the 800 million people strong market of ASEAN and SE Asian countries through industrial resurgence of the state in light of increased investment inflow to the state.
The chief minister informed the delegation that with better connectivity and communication, Act East Policy was putting emphasis on youth exchange programmes along with exchange of culture, literature, tourism etc with the neighbouring countries. Due to the central government’s focus on the development of the region and state government’s initiatives, consular offices of Bhutan and Bangladesh have been opened in the state. Expansion of Guwahati as state capital region, construction of twin towers for bringing big business houses, development of rail, road, waterways and airways etc are some of the activities that were highlighted by the chief minister during the interaction.
The senior state government officials present in the meeting informed about the various development measures taken by the state government with the support of central government including starting new international flights between Guwahati and Dhaka and other forthcoming flights like Guwahati-Bangkok along with flights to Kathmandu, Yangon, Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur, a press release stated.