India’s Act East Policy and Assam: Connectivity, Regional Integration and Emerging Opportunities

India’s Act East Policy (AEP), announced in 2014, builds on the Look East Policy initiated in the early 1990s and places greater emphasis on practical connectivity, strategic cooperation and people-to-people engagement with Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific. This conceptual paper examines the place of Assam and the wider North-Eastern Region (NER) in that policy, with particular attention to transport links, cross-border trade, investment, tourism, financial inclusion and socio-cultural exchange. The study uses a qualitative, descriptive and analytical approach based on secondary sources, including government policy documents and published academic research. The analysis suggests that Assam’s location, transport networks, human resources and resource base give it the potential to function as a logistics and services hub connecting mainland India with neighbouring countries. However, geography alone does not guarantee development. Infrastructure gaps, delays in cross-border projects, difficult terrain, security concerns, limited export capacity, skills shortages and uneven access to finance may constrain the benefits of regional integration. The paper argues that the success of the AEP in Assam should be assessed not only by the completion of transport projects but also by local employment, enterprise growth, value addition, inclusive access to markets and environmental safeguards. It recommends coordinated infrastructure planning, stronger trade facilitation, support for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), skills development, and transparent project monitoring and community participation. As a conceptual study, it does not claim to measure causal impacts; rather, it develops an analytical framework and identifies priorities for future empirical research.