AIZAWL, April 16: A seven-member Mizoram delegation will leave for Guwahati on April 24 to engage in official-level discussions with Assam to resolve the long-standing boundary dispute between the two northeastern states, a senior official said on Wednesday.
The delegation will be headed by Home Secretary Vanlalmawia, while the Assam team is likely to be led by a principal secretary or secretary of the neighbouring state’s Border Protection and Development Department, he said.
The meeting is scheduled to be held in Guwahati on April 25.
Related Posts:
The official said the meeting will focus on preparing and finalising the groundwork and modalities for the next round of ministerial-level talks.
It will also deal with technicalities related to the border issue, he said.
The last and fourth round of ministerial-level talks was held in Aizawl on August 9 last year.
In the meeting, which was attended by Mizoram Home Minister K Sapdanga and Assam’s Border Protection and Development Minister Atul Bora, the delegations agreed to continue to observe conditions agreed in the previous parleys, including maintaining peace along the interstate border.
The two states had also agreed to hold the next round of ministerial-level meeting in Guwahati before March 31 this year, which, however, did not happen.
Meanwhile, Sapdanga on Wednesday chaired a meeting of the Mizoram boundary committee ahead of forthcoming official-level talks.
It reviewed necessary documents to be tabled during the April 25 talks.
Sapdanga said the state government’s top priority is to ensure that Mizoram’s border is secure.
He also said “massive efforts” are underway to ensure that Mizoram does not lose its territory.
Three Mizoram districts – Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit – share a 164.6-km border with Assam’s Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts.
The decades-old border dispute mainly stemmed from two conflicting colonial-era demarcations – one from 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) and another from 1933.
Mizoram claims that 509 square miles of the Inner Line Reserved Forest (ILRF) delineated in 1875 under the BEFR as its legitimate area or boundary.
In contrast, Assam asserts the border defined by a 1933 map prepared by the Survey of India in 1933 as its constitutional boundary.
As a result, both states lay claim to overlapping areas, with no ground demarcation conducted till date, officials said.
Since August 2021, both states have held four rounds of ministerial-level talks to resolve the decades-old border dispute. (PTI)
