[Assam] An impression of Assam Fionna Prins

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

EDITORIAL 

    
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  An impression of Assam
— Fionna Prins
  Fionna, do you want to make a presentation at a conference on investing in Assam?”, This question was posed to me in mid-December by Sri Wahid Saleh, the man responsible for energizing all kinds of relationships between India and the Netherlands. My first thought was ‘Brilliant! I would love to see Assam’. The next, ‘What do I know about Assam to contribute to the conference in a meaningful way’.

There were really only two things I knew about Assam, tea and Kaziranga. Trying to educate myself, I went for a search on the internet. Geogling the words inveting and Assam the first link listed was a ten year old and excruciatingly boring document titled “Assam – a guide for investors, January 1996”. The second link was a lot less boring and shorter but equally demoralising”. “Assam is the largest of the northeastern states of India. It has the best developed physical infrastructure among the northeastern states. The work culture is good and as is the management-worker relations. Unfortunately, the persistent law and order problems in the state have resulted in inadequate protection of industry. The level of urbanisation is low and it is also one of the most corrupt states in the country. The state also has a power deficit of 19.38%.”

A further search resulted in long documents about the government offering plenty of incentives to invest in Assam (always an indication something is amiss) and the not very inspiring ‘Bamboo and Cane Policy’. To top it, some two weeks before the conference about 80 people were shot by insurgents.

So, my first impression of Assam was not very favourable and, at least on the internet, it appeared it was not selling itself too well either. This is a great shame because my visit to Assam was marvellous. I was bowled over by the beauty of the countryside and very pleasantly surprised by the directness and straightforwardness with which the Assamese approached us. We found that no matter who we were dealing with – the conference delegates, the students or the hotel staff – all were remarkably frank and candid. Having worked all over India, generally I encounter either very political or rather shy attitudes. The Assamese approach is very refreshing will appeal to foreigners, especially to north Europeans the Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians who often campaign that it is difficult to get a straight answer in India.

There are also plenty of opportunities for investment such as food processing, BPO for the petrochemical industry, furniture manufacturing, tourism and much more. I do not wish to elaborate on these as I believe that any entrepreneur can see prospects in Assam. Nor will I dwelt on matters such as terrorism because as long as money can be made violence never stops investment (e.g. oil companies in war-torn African countries). In my mind, there appears to be two things which are holding Assam back.

Firstly, there seems to be a rather defeatist attitude. I have heard comments like “Assamese are professionals, not entrepreneurs”, “Assamese people do not want to work, they are lazy and only want easy money”, Assam has power shortages, “Assam is too corrupt”, etc.

As for the first remark, entrepreneurship is a combination of culture and attitude. It is not something you are born with. Entrepreneurship can be fostered and this is an area which deserves attention and offers investment opportunities in the form of training institutes.

The second statement is nonsense. It reminds me or Dutch and English cotonialists who were convinced that all non-Europeans were stupid and lazy. Already in 1958 Douglas McGregor rebutted this nation in his famous book, The Human Side of Enterprise.

With regards to the last comment, the problems mentioned are not unique to Assam and in other states not an impediment for investment. In fact, contrary to some other states, Assam is already on the road of improvement as was highlighted in the presentation of Sri H S Das, Commissioner and Secretary to the Government of Assam. He convinced me that there is considerable progress in the areas of combating corruption, building infrastructure and supplying power. Even though I am well aware there are often discrenancies between government policies and reality, steps in the right direction are obviously being made.

The second factor that is holding investment back is the lack of information. As I narrated at beginning of the article, the fact of the matter is that first line information on the internal (the starting point for most foreign investors) about Assam is old, not very compelling and unattractiveley presented . Investors, even experienced ones, hate the risks that come with greenfield operations. They are constantly looking to eliminate, or at least reduce, any possible threats. Risks are reduced by increasing predictability and in turn predictability is created by providing information. It might be a simple notion but when I told people I would go to Assam they told me they thought Assam was just a type of tea. It is up to Assam to put itself on the map and create investor’s confidence by presenting itself in such a way that investors will believe it offers better opportunities than any other state in India.
(Ms Fionna Prins is from the Netherlands and recently participated in EPIGENESIS Assam 2007, an international conference on Assam’s development, organised by the Assam Institute of Management).


 
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