GUWAHATI: Mizoram and Assam will resume border talks on August 9 to find an amicable solution to the inter-state boundary dispute.
Mizoram Home Minister K Sapdanga said on Monday that the next round of border talks will be held in Aizawl.
The last round of border talks between the two states was held in November 2022.
The Mizoram delegation would be headed by Sapdanga, while the Assam team would be led by its border protection and development minister Atul Bora.
“The Assam home secretary last week communicated with our home secretary and informed him about their intention to come to Aizawl on August 9 for talks. We conveyed our consent to the Assam government after consulting Chief Minister Lalduhoma,” Sapdanga said.
He expressed optimism that the upcoming talks will yield positive results to bring an amicable solution to the border dispute of both the states.
Sapdanga said, “Although Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had agreed to send his border protection and development minister to Mizoram in March during the meeting of chief ministers of the two neighbouring states in February, no further steps could be taken due to the Lok Sabha elections.”
He said there was no violation of the status quo from both sides since the violent clash in July 2021 where police forces of the two states exchanged fire at the inter-state boundary, leading to the death of six policemen and a civilian from Assam.
He said that Mizoram would submit a memorandum to Assam during the talks.
Three Mizoram districts- Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit- share a 164.6 km border with Assam’s Cachar, Karmganj, and Hailankandi districts.
The border dispute between the two neighbouring states is a long-standing that stemmed from two colonial demarcations – 1875 and 1933.
Mizoram claims that the 509 square miles area of the inner line reserved forest, notified in 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) 1873, falls within its territory. Assam, on the other hand, regarded the map prepared by the Survey of India in 1933 as its constitutional boundary.
Notably, vast areas within the inner line reserved forest now fall under Assam. Similarly, a certain extent of the area, as per the 1933 demarcation, is now on the Mizoram side.
There is no ground demarcation of boundaries between the two states.
The two states have held several rounds of talks, including three ministerial-level meetings since August 2021 and agreed to maintain peace along the boundary and resolve the dispute through dialogue.
In the last border talks held in Guwahati in November 2022, both delegations had decided that Mizoram would furnish the list of villages, their areas, geo-spatial extent, and ethnicity of the people and other relevant information within three months to support its claim which can be examined by setting up regional committees from both sides to arrive at an amicable resolution to the vexed border issues.
Mizoram submitted its claim by including 62 villages in the disputed area within its territory and claimed that they were within the extent of the inner line reserved forest notified in 1875.
