NEW DELHI, July 6 ? It?s official. The highest number of foreigners is staying in Assam but hold your breath its only 26,490 of them. That?s the official figure of number of foreigners living in Assam. Gone is the estimate that most of 1.20 crore illegal migrants were living in Assam. That was NDA?s estimate. According to the Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal there are about 46,818 foreigners reportedly living illegally in India as on December 2002. The highest number of foreigners staying illegally is in Assam followed by 11,122 in West Bengal and 2,405 living in Rajasthan. Section 3(2) (C) of the Foreigners Act 1946 empowers the Government of India to detect and deport foreign nationals staying in India unauthorisedly. This power has been delegated under Section 12 of the Act to the State Governments for the purpose of execution, he informed.
Meanwhile, in the Lok Sabha, Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil admitted that pace of fencing along the Indo-Bangladesh border was slower than pace of fencing work in Indo-Pakistan border. The Indo-Bangla border is longer than Indo-Pakistan and its terrain is difficult hampering fencing work. He was responding to Dr Arun Kumar Sarma during Question Hour today. Dr Sarma wanted to know whether the fencing work along the Indo-Bangladesh border was given less priority than Indo-Pakistan border fencing. He mentioned that Indo-Bangladesh border was prone to illegal infiltration, which threatens to change the demographic profile of the State.
Interestingly, the Minister of State in reply to a separate question said that some 12,283 illegal migrants from Bangladesh have been deported from Delhi during the past three years. The highest number of 3274 illegal migrants were deported this year till June. Various steps have been taken by Government to deal with the problem of illegal infiltration from Bangladesh. Additional BSF battalions have been raised, gap between two BoPs have been reduced besides accelerated construction programme of border roads and fencing have been taken up in States bordering Bangladesh, the Minister said.
Meanwhile, during a Question Hour discussion, Members charged that Border Area Development funds earmarked for Assam and Arunachal Pradesh was being diverted to Jammu and Kashmir.