Assam, Meghalaya settle border dispute in 6 areas
NEW DELHI: Assam and Meghalaya on Tuesday signed an agreement to resolve their five-decade-old border dispute in six of the 12 locations, with Union home minister Amit Shah calling it a “historic day” for the Northeast.
The agreement was signed in the presence of Shah and chief ministers of Assam and Meghalaya Himanta Biswa Sarma and Conrad Sangma respectively.
The pact will resolve the protracted dispute in six of the 12 places along the 884.9 km border between the two states.
“It is a historic day for the Northeast,” Shah said at the function held at the ministry of home affairs.
The home minister said with the signing of the agreement, 70% of the border dispute between the two states has been resolved.
There are 36 villages in the six places, covering an area of 36.79 sq km, with regard to which the agreement has been reached.
The two states had formed three committees each in August last year to go into the vexed boundary question. The constitution of the panels had followed two rounds of talks between Sarma and Sangma where the neighbouring states resolved to settle the dispute in a phased manner.
According to the joint final set of recommendations made by the committees, out of 36.79 sq km disputed area taken up for settlement in the first phase, Assam will get full control of 18.51 sq km and Meghalaya 18.28 sq km.
Out of the 12 points of dispute between Assam and Meghalaya, the six areas with relatively less critical differences were taken up in the first phase.
Meghalaya CM Sangma said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah gave the necessary push to resolve the long-pending border dispute.
“There has been a lot of push from Prime Minister and home minister that they would like to see that these differences (Assam-Meghalaya border issue) are resolved because if India and Bangladesh can resolve the border issues then why can’t the states also. This is the stand they took,” said
Sangma.
The Meghalaya CM said the process to resolve the dispute has been going on for several years. “It is a process and the process has been going on for a long time. Everybody has done their part, contributed in their own way. The push was given in last few years by the Centre and both state governments,” he said.
Terming the agreement a result of teamwork, Sangma said, “I am thankful to Amit Shah and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma because they went the extra mile. It’s only because of overall teamwork that was there, we were able to resolve or at least come to some kind of a resolution in the first six areas of differences out of the 12.” Sangma said that everyone wants border disputes to be resolved and this agreement will bring muchneeded peace to the area. “I think it is a very important resolution and it will lead to a lot of peace in the border areas,” he said. The boundary dispute between Assam and Meghalaya has lingered for 50 years. However, the effort to resolve it gained pace in recent times.
Meghalaya was carved out of Assam as a separate state in 1972 but the new state had challenged the Assam Reorganisation Act, 1971, leading to dispute in 12 locations in the border areas.