Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, March 29: In a significant milestone, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad Sangma signed an agreement in New Delhi on Tuesday to resolve the 50-year-old border dispute between the two northeastern states in the presence of Union home minister Amit Shah.
The agreement was signed at the Ministry of Home Affairs by the Chief Ministers of Assam and Meghalaya in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. In the presence of the chief secretaries of both states, as well as other officials from both states and MHA officials, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad K Sangma signed the agreement.
“I want to thank Amit Shah for giving us the direction to resolve the border disputes. Today, the first phase of the resolution has been done. It could only be possible because of Himanta Biswa Sarma,” Sangma said after signing the agreement.
He had previously stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah had made “a lot of push” to overcome the disputes between the two states.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Assam and Meghalaya was inked two months after the Chief Ministers of both states submitted a draft resolution to Shah on January 31 for assessment and consideration by the MHA. The administrations of Assam and Meghalaya have drafted a resolution to settle their border disputes in six of the 12 “areas of disagreement” along the 884-kilometer frontier.
According to the recommended suggestions, Assam will keep 18.51 square kilometres and give the remaining 18.28 square kilometres to Meghalaya. The deal between Assam and Meghalaya is noteworthy because the two states’ boundary dispute has been ongoing for a long time.
