Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla on Friday directed West Bengal government officials to expedite the fencing of the India-Bangladesh border in the state.
At a meeting with the state administration and Border Security Force (BSF) officials here, the senior bureaucrat pointed out that only 182 km of the required 289 km along the Bangladesh border had been fenced because of problems with land acquisition.
The meeting came in the backdrop of strong differences emerging between the Mamata Banerjee government and the Centre on the expansion of the BSF’s jurisdiction in border states such as West Bengal, Assam, and Punjab. However, it was learnt that the matter was not discussed at the meeting.
Chief Secretary Harikrishna Dwivedi, state Home Secretary BP Gopalika, Land Secretary Manoj Pant, and Director General of Police (DGP) Manoj Malaviya were among those who attended the two-and-a-half-hour discussion at Hidco Bhavan that Bhalla chaired to discuss border-related issues. The district magistrates and SPs of 10 districts that share the international border with Bangladesh also participated in the meeting. The 10 districts are North and South 24 Parganas, Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Nadia, Malda, and Murshidabad.