“The replacement is in pursuance of the Centre’s decision to replace the entire 861 km of fencing constructed under Phase-I in West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya, which got damaged due to adverse climatic conditions, repeated submergence etc.,” said a statement released by the Union Home Ministry her last evening.
As per an approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the extension of time for this project is upto March 31, 2010.
According to the latest statistics provided by the BSF, of the 577 km of border in Assam and Meghalaya, a portion seen as the most infiltration prone, only 91 km of the fencing work has been completed and work is in progress on 129 km.
The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) had been objecting to the fencing in 76 patches along the international border in North eastern region, but have of late allowed the work to continue in 46 places, BSF officials said.
Villagers, fearing that their farmland would fall beyond the fencing, had stalled the work in some stretches of Meghalaya.
Work under Phase-I started in 1989 and fencing was done in 854 km against the approved target of 857 km. The Phase II involved 2429 km of the total 4,096-km-long border. Currently, Phase III is in progress in Assam’s Dhubri district, the release said.
The porous Indo-Bangla border continues to be in the limelight due to terror strikes in some parts of the country, illegal infiltration and smuggling of narcotics, cattle and fake currency.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram recently said the Centre was not satisfied with the progress in fencing of the Indo-Bangla border and would take steps to speed it up.
The Centre had decided to floodlight the entire Indo-Bangladesh border fence, but only a stretch of 277-km has been done so far as part of a pilot project. – PTI