Nearly 83,000 hectares of Assam land under neighbouring states' occupation: Minister
Guwahati: Nearly 83,000 hectares of land claimed by Assam are currently under the occupation of four neighbouring states, the Assam Assembly was informed on Wednesday.
Replying to a question by Congress MLA Rekibuddin Ahmed, Border Protection and Development Minister Atul Bora said 82,751.86 hectares of land across 18 districts of Assam are under the occupation of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
Nagaland accounts for the largest share of the disputed land, with 59,490.21 hectares under its occupation, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (16,144.01 hectares), Mizoram (3,675.78 hectares) and Meghalaya (3,441.86 hectares).
The affected districts are Sonitpur, Biswanath, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Charaideo, Jorhat, Sivasagar, Golaghat, Goalpara, Cachar, Kamrup, Kamrup Metropolitan, South Salmara-Mankachar, West Karbi Anglong, Hailakandi and Sribhumi.
Bora told the House that the state government was continuing efforts to resolve the long-pending inter-state boundary disputes through dialogue.
"The Assam government has progressed to settle these border disputes with the neighbouring states through dialogues," he said.
The minister added that Assam had already signed bilateral agreements with Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, following the Union Home Ministry's directions, as part of the process to resolve the border disputes.