[Assam] Only five km Bangla border fenced in 06?

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

   Only five km Bangla border fenced in  ’06?
   By a Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI,  March 4: Fencing along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Asom sector seems to be  abysmally slow although it is an admitted fact that the international border  with Bangladesh is marked by high degree of porosity, thereby making the efforts  to check illegal cross-border activities a challenging task.
“The main  problem is illegal migration into India from Bangladesh,” sources in the  Ministry of Home Affairs said quoting its annual document for the year  2005-2006.
According to the latest information, about a 65-km stretch along  the Asom-Bangladesh border is yet to be fenced. The unfenced stretch along the  international border in Asom was about 70 km in early 2006, the MHA data said.  That means that only 5 km border fencing was done in 2006.
According to the  data provided by Asom Revenue and Assam Accord Implementation Minister Dr  Bhumidhar Barman in the floor of the State Assembly last week, 150.607 km of the  267.30-km Asom-Bangladesh border has been fenced so far by the Assam Public  Works Department, one of the seven agencies all over the country that have been  entrusted by the Centre to complete the fencing work along the 3,286-km-long  Indo-Bangladesh border.
The minister said that the fencing work was in  progress in another stretch of 26.358 km border, which was targeted to be  completed by March, while the work in the remaining 37.909 km was yet to  start.
However, the MHA’s annual report last year said that barring the  400-km-stretch along Indo-Bangla border in Mizoram, the entire border fencing  project was expected to be completed by the fiscal 2006-2007.
Another cause  of concern along the Indo-Bangladesh border is its riverine stretch measuring  about 107 km. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in his annual report  three years back, had expressed his concern over the unsealed part of the  riverine border. “With the riverine stretch of the border left unfenced, the  primary objective of fighting illegal migration stands defeated,” he  said.
However, there is no river police to guard the riverine border in Asom,  said the minister. According to him, it is only the river wing of the BSF that  covers the area.

 
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