Shillong, May 29: The Centre has asked Meghalaya government to fast-track the completion of construction of the fencing along the international border in view of the prevailing situation in neighbouring Bangladesh.
“Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma had recently met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and had discussed this matter of border fencing. The Union Home Ministry has told us that we need to fast-track and ensure that everything is taken up on a mission mode and complete and close all cases of land acquisition so that the fencing work can start immediately,” Chief Secretary DP Wahlang said.
He informed that there are some issues pertaining to Meghalaya. First is that there are some cases with the High Court, which need to be cleared because of the title and second is that there are some portions in which the verification and authentication needs to be sent by the Deputy Commissioners to the Union Home Ministry for them to release the funds.
“As far as the second part is concerned, the verification certificates have already been issued by the respective DCs of the state and the Government of India is scrutinizing the documents and funds will be released soon. I am sure that once the funds are released, the construction will start,” Wahlang said adding “As far as the court case is concerned, we have appealed to the court to allow the construction of the border fencing pending the finalisation of the case because of the security issue that is involved right now.”
The Chief Secretary has assured that 75 percent to 80 percent of the border fencing will be completed by the end of this year. “We share a border of 443 kms of which the fencing is about 60% completed and 40% is still to be done. But with the steps taken recently, we have had at least 6-7 review meetings on this, of which many of them are headed by our Chief Minister also. We assure that by the end of this year this 60% should go to about 75% to 80%.”
