Assam will be the first state in the country where a gross state happiness index survey will be carried out this year. The survey will be undertaken by the Centre of Environment, IIT (Guwahati) in collaboration with the School of the Environment, Flinders University in South Australia and supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Assam government.

The survey will be initiated on the model of the Bhutan Gross National Happiness (BGNH).

The plans and procedures for the well-being survey was discussed in a workshop titled 'A Stakeholder Workshop on Measuring Sustainable Well-being for Assam' held at the Humanities and Social Science (HSS) department, IIT Guwahati on Tuesday.

The workshop was an attempt to study the BGNH model and incorporate some changes in the context of Assam so that a pilot survey could be carried out in some of the districts.

Based on the pilot survey, the team behind the project will be able to understand the dynamics of various communities, the obstacles they face, the resources they require, implementation of changes, and other important aspects.

After two to three months of the pilot survey, the main survey will be finalized and based on this main survey, a large survey comprising all the districts of the state will be carried out.

"The chief minister was impressed by the GNH carried out in Bhutan last year and he had shown some interest in the same being carried out in Assam. And it was then that we decided to carry out the survey here. The concept of the well-being survey was introduced by the UNDP. The Human Development Index is a yardstick measuring human well-being in terms of health, education and income. But what we want to do in Assam is beyond these three aspects," said Udoy Sankar Saikia, Associate Director, Applied Population Studies School of the Environment Geography, Population and Environmental Management, Flinders University.

Tuesday's workshop saw discussion on nine GNH domains where participants made an effort to adapt and reduce variables in the Bhutan indicators which reflects societal values and principles. The nine domains are: educational, environmental, living standard, governance, health, psychological, time use (time spent in 24 hours), community and culture.