Shillong: With the Centre setting timelines
for securing the country`s borders in the North East, Union
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday reviewed the progress of
work at the international boundary in Meghalaya.
"We have taken a decision today to accelerate the process
and we want to complete it as much as possible before monsoon
sets in," he told reporters after the review meeting.
e said phase-2 of construction of roads and floodlighting
will begin.
The Home Minister also met members of the Coordination
Committee on Border Fencing (CCIB), a conglomeration of
influential NGOs in the state opposing border fencing, for a
discussion on how to end the stalemate.
While the Centre wants to construct the fence 150 yards
inside and away from the zero-line, CCIB has been pressing for
fencing at the actual line to prevent loss of agricultural
land.
The CCIB is also against the Indo-Bangladesh land pact
signed by both countries in September last year. They said,
the border survey conducted by the Joint Boundary Working
Group was done without consultation with land owners, the
traditional bodies and the CCIB.
On December 9, the Centre had agreed to a suggestion made
by the Meghalaya government to undertake a single row fencing
along the zero line in those areas on the Indo-Bangla border
where people are objecting to the 150 yard buffer.
According to the home ministry, the Indian side of the
India-Bangladesh border passes through West Bengal, Assam,
Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
The ministry, on its website, said the total length on the
India-Bangladesh border sanctioned to be fenced was 3,436.56
km, of which about 2,735 km of fencing has been done so far.
The remaining work is to be completed by March, it added.
Meghalaya shares a 443 kilometre border with Bangladesh,
parts of which are still unfenced and plagued with bad terrain
and infiltration.
PTI
