Political face-off: Who is to be blamed for porous India-Bangladesh border?
Delay by Centre in utilising land acquired by state govt, hiccups in land acquisition, and resistance to fencing by Border Guard Bangladesh have kept the border porous
Who is to be blamed for the porous India-Bangladesh border? The question has become a bone of contention between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP ever since Union Home Minister Amit Shah, during a visit to the state on Sunday (June 1), accused the West Bengal government of non-cooperation in securing the border.
Available data and other relevant information, however, punch holes in the home minister’s claim, which at best is a half-truth.
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Communications between New Delhi and Nabanna, West Bengal’s administrative headquarters, suggest that the Centre’s asserted urgency in acquiring the land on security grounds is not reflected in its seriousness regarding its utilisation.
No land utilisation
The Ministry of Defence relentlessly pursued the state government for two years to purchase a parcel of land measuring 9.22 acres at Frasergunj in the South 24 Parganas district.
It needed the land to set up a forward operating base and a rescue centre of the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) near the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) in Sundarbans. The cross-border security threat in Sundarbans that extends up to Bangladesh was cited as one of the needs for the ICG base.
The state allotted the land in 2021. But the Centre has not utilised it in the last four years, accruing penal interest at 6.25 per cent on the land’s value.
The MoD in August last year urged the state government to waive the penal interest and extend the time for taking possession of the land. The state government agreed to the request and extended the time till March 31 this year.
Extension in deadline
On the expiry of that deadline, the MoD vide another letter dated May 29 sought a further extension, sources in the state’s land and land reforms department disclosed to The Federal. The land allotted for erecting the border fence, too, has not been entirely utilised, officials of the department further pointed out.
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In February this year, the state government allotted 0.05 acres at Binnaguri in Jalpaiguri district and 19.73 acres at Narayanpur in Malda district for border fencing. Similarly, in January, 0.9 acres of land were allotted in Karimpur in Nadia district to set up BSF border outposts.
Unfenced border
Of the 2216 km of India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, 405 km is unfenced.
The BSF has failed to erect the fence on the land provided by the state government at several points along the border due to stiff opposition from the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).
Fencing work taken up in several districts of West Bengal in January-February this year had to be suspended after the BGB objected to construction within 150 yards of the zero line.
The issue was also discussed at the biannual director-general-level border meeting of the two forces in New Delhi in February this year.
The officials, however, at the same time admit that in some stretches, particularly in North Bengal districts, land could not be handed over to the Centre for fencing work due to legal complications over acquisition.
TMC counters Shah
“There are procedural matters involving land acquisition. It should not be politicised,” TMC spokesperson and state minister Chandrima Bhattacharya told the media.
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She was responding to Shah’s claim that the infiltration from Bangladesh through the border in West Bengal could not be checked due to the state government’s non-cooperation in allotting land for border fencing.
“Officials of concerned district administrations regularly hold meetings with residents in border areas wherever there is a land acquisition problem,” said a senior official of the land and land reform departments, refuting the claim of non-cooperation.
He claimed that the Jalpaiguri district administration in the past few months successfully convinced residents of the Dakshin Berubari area to give land for barbed wire fencing work. “So far, the district administration could settle the land problem in an 11 km stretch of the 19-km border in the area,” he added.
