Meghalaya, Assam expect boundary row resolution in six areas by year-end

Guwahati, Nov 16: Meghalaya and Assam are eyeing the year-end by which they hope to “more or less” resolve issues in the six areas of differences along the inter-state boundary.

The regional committees constituted by the two states will submit their reports after making ground visits to the six areas of differences along the inter-state border by November 30, 2021.

Addressing a joint conference of the chief ministers of the two states at the State Guest House in Koinadhora here today, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that all the three committees would submit their reports to the respective chief ministers by November 30.

“Once the report is on our table, we will meet again and see whether we have a meeting of minds or not. If so, we will consult the stakeholders once again at the state and district levels. We will be issuing a final statement on the six areas of differences and complete the entire process by December 31, 2021,” Sarma said.

“On the issue of agreement, we will issue a final statement. But wherever there are any points of differences, we will continue our deliberations…But we are proceeding in the right spirit as of now,” he said, while adding that it “will be a fitting tribute to our founders if this landmark (border dispute resolution in all the 12 areas) was achieved in a year’s time.”

Sarma further added that the entire border resolution exercise was being monitored by the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister.

Earlier on Tuesday morning, Sarma, along with Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma, paid a historic visit to Langpih and interacted with the villagers. “Our visit to Langpih was very fruitful,” Sarma said.

This was for the first time in the history of the two states that the chief ministers paid a joint visit to a disputed inter-state border area.

On the way forward, chief minister Sangma said that the long-pending issues would be resolved in phases with the support of everyone. “We should be able to achieve clarity on which villages need to come under the administration of which state,” he said.

Thanking the regional committees for their extensive work in the past three to four months, he said the panels were formed precisely “to get a sense of what is happening at the grassroots level and a first-hand report from