GUWAHATI
Four northeastern neighbours are occupying more than 82,000 hectares of Assam’s land, the State’s Border Protection and Development Minister Atul Bora told the 126-member Assam Assembly on Wednesday (March 5, 2025). The four neighbouring States named by the Minister are Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland.
Responding to a question from Congress MLA Rekibuddin Ahmed, Mr. Bora claimed these four States had encroached upon 82,751.86 hectares of land across 18 districts of Assam.
He added that the largest chunk of land — 59,490.21 hectares — was in Nagaland’s possession, while Meghalaya had encroached upon the least space (3,441.86 hectares).
Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram have encroached upon 16,144.01 hectares and 3,675.78 hectares of land, respectively, Mr. Bora said.
The Minister said Biswanath, Cachar, Charaideo, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Kamrup, Lakhimpur, Sonitpur, and Tinsukia are among the affected districts of Assam.
In March 2022, Assam and Meghalaya partially resolved a 50-year-old dispute in six of the 12 sectors along their 885-km boundary. The two States agreed to divide 36.79 sq. km area across these six sectors almost equally.
Four months later, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh signed the Namsai Declaration wherein 123 disputed border villages claimed by Arunachal Pradesh were minimised to 86.
Published – March 06, 2025 05:41 am IST
