India approves Tk 52 billion projects to revive stalled border fencing with Bangladesh

India’s Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has approved Tk 52.8 billion (Rs 44 billion) projects for the 4,096 km border with Bangladesh, a top official in India’s home ministry said.

The approval has come even as fencing work along the border between the two countries remains stalled due to delays in land acquisition, pending wildlife clearance, and resolution of objections by locals.
 
The newly sanctioned projects include 200 km of border fencing and the construction of a 400-km road, among other initiatives.
 
The CCS that met last week also extended the border fencing project till 2019, as the March 2014 target could not be achieved.
 
“Although 88 percent of the total fencing work has been completed, work in many areas has been halted manly because of protests by local people and land acquisition problems,” a top home ministry official told bdnews24.com on condition of anonymity.
 
Of the total 4,096 km border with Bangladesh, Assam shares 262 km. The fencing work has been stalled in parts of Dhubri and Karimganj districts.
 
According to reports, while the proposed alignment of the fence along Karimganj sector was initially at 30 metres from the bank of the River Kushiara, the state government felt that many inhabited areas would fall outside the fence towards the Bangladesh side.
 
However, in coordination with the National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited (NBCC), a fresh exercise was begun to realign the fence at a five-metre distance from the river separating Karimganj from Bangladesh.
 
The ministry is still waiting for the report.
 
Similarly, land acquisition problems have hampered progress in West Bengal, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura. “All the state governments have been asked to cooperate to expedite the work,” the official said. 
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in May this year, wrote to the chief ministers of India’s north-eastern states, asking them to speed up land acquisition so that job could be completed.
 
Several student and mass organisations of India’s north-eastern states have been pressing for the completion of the fencing work. 
 
They maintain a porous border encouraged unabated migration from across the border.
 
“Yes, a fenced border will always help in stopping the large-scale illegal migration from Bangladesh,” said Samujjal Bhattacharya, advisor to the All Assam Student Union (AASU).
 
It was the AASU that had started a vigorous anti-foreigner movement in Assam in late 1970s, compelling the then governments at the Centre and state to sign the Assam Accord in 1985.
 
(Tk 1= Rs 0.83)