BTR Polls 2025: Congress vows ‘power to people’ with 33% reservation for women entrepreneurs

The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has released its Vision Document 2025 for the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), promising a roadmap of peace, prosperity, and inclusive development rooted in the constitutional autonomy of the Sixth Schedule.

The document, titled “Power to the People: A Roadmap for a Peaceful, Prosperous, and Progressive BTR”, accuses the ruling UPPL-BJP-BPF alliance of betraying the people for over a decade and turning the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) into a “tool for power, not empowerment.” It pledges to fully implement the BTR Accord and strengthen BTC’s constitutional powers by pushing for the 125th amendment to Article 280 of the Constitution to ensure financial autonomy.

Among its core commitments, Congress promised to legally uphold land rights for locals, digitise land records, and set up block-level tribunals to resolve disputes. It also pledged to secure land for pastoralists, reserve homestead plots for teachers, healthcare workers, ex-servicemen, and peace accord signatories, while ensuring “first rights” for locals over resources.

On the economic front, the party vowed to transform Kokrajhar into a regional growth hub with IT parks, agro-industries, and border trade centres; promote eco-tourism and community cooperatives in Chirang; develop Tamulpur as a model administrative district with industrial estates near the Bhutan border; and establish Udalguri as an education and agro-industry hub with a central university. In Baksa, Congress promised green and sustainable development with renewable energy projects and organic farming hubs.

The Vision Document also detailed an ambitious employment and youth empowerment plan, including a “local-first” recruitment policy in all BTR institutions, reservation of tenders below ₹5 crore for local entrepreneurs, a Bodoland Start-up Fund, and integration of vocational training into school curricula.

Health and education featured prominently, with promises to set up super-speciality hospitals, mobile medical units in every block, and launch a BTR Education Equity Mission aimed at achieving zero school dropouts by 2030.

To strengthen women and child development, the Congress pledged 33% reservation of BTR-specific tenders for women entrepreneurs, nutritional schemes for children, and expanded support for women’s cooperatives. It also promised to empower artisans, preserve indigenous languages, and establish cultural centres in memory of Bodo leaders like Guru Kalicharan Brahma and Rupnath Brahma.

Tourism and trade were highlighted as key growth engines, with a proposed Bodoland Tourism Circuit, eco-tourism projects around Manas National Park, cultural festivals, and smart border towns to position BTR as a trade gateway to Bhutan.

Calling BTR “a land of sacrifice, resilience, and cultural pride,” the Congress concluded its Vision Document with a pledge to rebuild the region into “a Bodoland that does not lag but leads Assam and the Northeast in development, harmony, and progress.”