GUWAHATI:
Both the Assam and Arunachal Pradesh governments seem to have agreed to employ the same formula which recently helped the former resolve a part of the vexed border row with Meghalaya – constitution of respective district-level committees to undertake joint surveys of disputed areas to find a tangible solution to the decades-old border row.
“We share a very long border with Assam. There are 12 districts of Assam in the inter-state border and we have to go for a ground visit to each one of them, for which, district-level committees will have to be formed,” said Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu, before the second chief ministerial-level meeting with his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma at State Guest House No 1 at Koinadhara, on April 20.
To undertake the joint surveys in the disputed areas, the meeting also finalised the terms of reference of the proposed committees – historical perspective, ethnicity, contiguity, people’s will and administrative convenience of both the states.
Taking to a popular micro-blogging website post the meeting, Sarma wrote, “Took part in the 2nd CM-level meeting with my Arunachal Pradesh counterpart PemaKhandu ji to resolve the boundary disputes between the two states. We decided to form district-level committees in both the states to resolve the issue in a time-bound manner. We have also finalised the terms of reference of the committees (sic).”
Exuding hope that this meeting will help in resolving the 50-year-old issue between Arunachal and Assam, Khandu said, “We are trying our best to resolve the vexed problem between the two states. The main base will be the Supreme Court’s recommendation of appointing respective local committees to resolve the long-pending issue.”
Assam’s border development minister Atul Bora, chief secretary Jishnu Baruah, Arunachal Pradesh chief secretary Naresh Kumar and other senior officials from both the states also attended the meeting on Wednesday.
Earlier on March 30, a day after signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Meghalaya to resolve six out of 12 areas of dispute, Sarma had told the Assam Assembly that the same approach will be employed to resolve the row with Arunachal.
Elaborating on the approach, Sarma had said, “Legislators of both the states, student organisations such as the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) along with their Arunachal counterparts have to sit together with the local people to resolve the vexed issue. If the local inhabitants agree, only then a viable solution for border disputes can be achieved.”
Citing a report of a committee set up by then Assam chief minister Gopinath Bordoloi, Sarma had said in the House that based on that report our government has transferred 3,000 sq km of land from Arunachal Pradesh (then North-East Frontier Agency) in 1951 with the argument that these are the plain areas that should not be within a hill state.
“Since then, Arunachal has a boundary dispute with Assam. But now chief minister Khandu has informed that the dispute involves only 122 villages covering an area of 1,119 sq km. But later, it further came down to 850 sq km,” Sarma said, adding that most of these villages are located deep inside Arunachal spreading across Sonari, Naharkatia and Tinsukia constituencies and Assam government has no administrative control over them.
In 2007, Arunachal Pradesh presented its proposal in front of the Tarun Chatterjee Commission in which it requested Assam to return 956 sq km of the 1,119.2 sq km. Assam rejected it in 2009 and argued that the boundary should be settled in the spirit of “giving and taking”.
Assam has raised the issue of encroachment in 2020 and claimed that Arunachal Pradesh has encroached upon 6,375 hectares of its forest land. It is important to note that the Assam government has been periodically launching eviction drives in the encroached lands leading to violence on the ground and tensions such as in 2005 and 2014.