Union Home Secretary evaluates Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal border disputes

Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan held a series of meetings here with senior officials of Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh to review the progress of border row settlement talks.

According to sources, the chief secretaries of all the three states met the Union home secretary separately and presented their side of arguments.

Mohan, who took charge as the home secretary in August this year, also reviewed the agreements signed by Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh with Assam to hammer out border disputes.

The Assam government, which organised the meetings, remained tight-lipped on what conspired in the talks among the top bureaucrats of the Centre and the three states.

Another meeting also took place to address the flood situation in Assam, which is impacted by water flowing from Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, sources said.

Later, Mohan held another round of meeting with the chief executive councillors of Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council, Tiwa Autonomous Council and Mising Autonomous Council to discuss their issues in presence of Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu.

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"The councils presented their powers and functions and urged for constitutional status to these three councils. I attended the meeting along with Ravi Kota, Chief Secretary of Assam," the minister said in a post on X.

On Tuesday, the Union home secretary had met the representatives of various militant organisations, including ULFA, and reviewed the progress of several peace accords signed with them.

According to information provided by the Assam government to the assembly in February this year, almost 83,000 hectares of the state's land are currently being occupied by four neighbouring states -- Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram.

Of these states, Nagaland has the highest at 59,490.21 hectares, while Meghalaya has the least at 3,441.86 hectares. Arunachal Pradesh has encroached upon 16,144.01 hectares of land, while Mizoram has grabbed 3,675.78 hectares, as per Assam government.

Assam and Arunachal Pradesh share a 804.1-km border in Udalguri, Sonitpur, Biswanath, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Charaideo districts. There are 1,200 points of disputes along the inter-state border between the two states.

Arunachal Pradesh was a centrally-administered region initially after Independence and became a Union Territory later, before attaining full statehood in 1987.

After Arunachal Pradesh achieved statehood, a tripartite committee was appointed which recommended that certain territories be transferred from Assam to Arunachal Pradesh. Assam contested this and the matter is in the Supreme Court.

An MoU was signed by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Arunachal Pradesh counterpart Pema Khandu in April 2023 in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi to resolve the border row regarding 123 villages claimed by the Himalayan state.

The government formed 12 regional committees to deal with the disputed areas and the boundaries in 71 of these villages have already been settled.

Assam and Meghalaya have a longstanding dispute in 12 areas along the 884.9-km-long inter-state border. The two states had signed an agreement in March 2022 in the presence of Shah in New Delhi towards ending the disputes in six areas.

Out of 36.79 sq km of disputed areas taken up for settlement in the first phase at six places, Assam got 18.46 sq km and Meghalaya received 18.33 sq km.

Meghalaya was carved out of Assam in 1972 and had since then challenged the Assam Reorganisation Act, 1971, which is recognised by Assam as its border.