The Assam Cabinet has approved ₹600 crore to procure and establish a proton beam therapy facility at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, a cancer-treatment system expected to take at least three years to become operational.
The project includes the machine, a specialised bunker, training and a five-year comprehensive maintenance package. The World Bank will provide ₹315 crore as a loan, while the state government will bear the remaining ₹285 crore. Once operational, GMCH is expected to become the third hospital in India with proton beam therapy and the first in the government healthcare sector.
The Cabinet also cleared the framework for a ₹50,000 crore development programme, scheduled to begin in 2027-28 and run for seven years. Of the total, ₹30,000 crore is to be raised from NABARD and ₹20,000 crore from enhanced state revenue collections. The proposed spending covers schools, anganwadi centres, primary healthcare, roads, power networks, housing for tea-garden workers, women’s markets and hostels, industrial estates and anti-flood embankments.
For industrial development, the Cabinet allotted 1,176 bighas of land to the Assam Industrial Development Corporation and the Assam Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation for industrial estates. The announcement also referred to an additional 1,074 bighas being added to the industrial land bank, without explaining the difference between the two figures. Separately, 27 bighas in Dhemaji Revenue Circle have been transferred to the Veterinary Department for a milk-processing centre.
A standard operating procedure has been approved for the purchase and sale of tea gardens, requiring formal registration in the name of the new owner. The measure is intended to ensure collection of stamp duty and registration fees and end the practice of tea gardens being run through informal ownership arrangements or powers of attorney.
The Cabinet sanctioned ₹109 crore as the first phase of a proposed ₹250 crore infrastructure plan for Gauhati University. The works include a G+5 academic building, a G+4 hostel for international students, a boys’ hostel, G+5 Grade IV staff quarters, modernisation of the Birinchi Kumar Barua auditorium and additions to the Krishna Kanta Handiqui Library. The projects are scheduled to be inaugurated on September 7 during the Vice-President’s proposed visit to the university.
Among other decisions, the Cabinet approved ₹155 crore for a road overbridge near Hawaipur railway station on the Kheroni Chariali-NH 27 road, intended to allow cement-laden vehicles from Umrangso to bypass Lanka town. It also removed the state retail-licence requirement for petroleum products such as petrol depots and LPG facilities, granted industry status to vehicle-scrapping facilities for government vehicles, and approved a proposed ₹300 crore enzyme-manufacturing unit of Farmbox Bio Private Limited at Tezpur. The company’s proposal envisages 210 permanent and 200 temporary jobs.
For the current month, subsidised sugar will be sold at ₹35 per kg and masur dal at ₹70 per kg. Arunodoy beneficiaries in flood-hit Sivasagar and Charaideo districts will receive ₹2,000 on September 10, while beneficiaries elsewhere in the state will receive ₹1,200. The Cabinet also decided to release ₹15,000 assistance for remaining flood-affected families in Sivasagar, Charaideo, Jorhat and Golaghat on September 1, when payments under Jibon Prerana and the first instalment under revised CM Flight guidelines are also due to resume.
