Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has said that his government would give top priority to development of the state as economic backwardness was the mother of all problems, even as he called upon militants to come forward for talks. Replying to the debate on the governor's address on Friday night in the assembly, Gogoi said that economic underdevelopment was at the bottom of insurgency, tribal unrest and unemployment. Instead of blaming the Centre for its alleged discriminatory policy, he said that the state government was now determined to bring about economic growth by judicious utilisation of central funds. He pointed out that non-submission of proper utilisation certificates for central funds by the state government for the last several years led to reduction in budgetary allocations by the Centre. The chief minister called upon extremist outfits to abjure violence and talk with the government to reach political solutions to various vexed problems.

Regarding the illegal migrants problem, Gogoi said that his government was for resolving the issue through the IM(DT) Act provisions so that no genuine Indian citizen was harassed in the name of detection and deportation of immigrants. A proposal was on for constituting block-level committees with members from prominent students organisations and other organisations to help in the detection and deportation process as per the act's provisions, he said.
Bureau Report