Floods take books. Assam's government is giving them back. The Chief Minister's Office of Assam announced on Wednesday, 29 July 2026 that Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma has unveiled a comprehensive education support package for students in flood-hit Sivasagar and Charaideo districts — covering free uniforms, reissued textbooks, and tiered cash grants from primary school through postgraduate level.

What the package covers: from uniforms to university grants

Schools in Sivasagar and Charaideo will receive fresh funds to provide new uniforms for students from Primary to Class X. Free textbooks will be reissued from 1 August to replace copies damaged or lost in the floods. The cash support scales with academic level: ₹1,000 for Higher Secondary students to cover books and study materials, ₹3,000 for Degree students, and ₹5,000 for Postgraduate and University students.

The announcement was made during a Facebook Live session by CM Himanta Biswa Sarma — a direct-to-citizen format the Chief Minister has used regularly to communicate relief measures without intermediaries.

Duplicate marksheets and certificates: fees waived entirely

For students and residents who lost academic records in the floods, the government has waived all fees for duplicate copies of marksheets and certificates. Concerned boards, councils, and universities have been directed to issue these at no cost. Lost credentials can quietly derail a student's future — this provision addresses a damage that rarely makes headlines but cuts deep.

Upper Assam's recurring flood burden

Sivasagar, a historically significant district in upper Assam, and Charaideo — carved out of Sivasagar in 2015 — sit in the flood plain of the Brahmaputra river system and face inundation almost every monsoon season. Assam governments have for decades issued annual flood relief packages covering education materials and cash assistance in affected districts, making this package part of a long-established pattern of disaster-linked educational recovery. What distinguishes the current announcement is its explicit tiering by academic level and the specific provision for document replacement.

Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has served as Chief Minister since 2021, has consistently used post-flood windows to announce targeted district-level relief, often naming specific dates for rollout — as with the 1 August textbook reissue deadline here.

Eyes on the 1 August rollout

The immediate test is delivery. Free textbook distribution begins in days, and the cash disbursement mechanism for higher education students will need to reach beneficiaries before the academic calendar is further disrupted. Two districts are named — whether the package extends to other flood-affected areas remains an open question the government has not yet addressed.