Meet to discuss Tripura-Bangla border fencing

AGARTALA, February 12: A high-level meeting of officials will be held here tomorrow to work out details about barbed fence along Tripura-Bangladesh border. The Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar, will address the meeting. Senior officials of the Union home ministry alongwith the BSF and the BRTF will be present at the meeting. Though the work on fencing was earlier scheduled to be started during current financial year, an official said, it would take some more time to finalise certain pending decisions. Dearth of funds may hamper work of the barbed wire fence. The scheme of putting up barbed fence along Tripura's 839 km stretch of international fringe line was earlier estimated to cost over Rs 800 crore. The Centre has approved only Rs 8 crore to start the work. It has been decided that a border stretch of 250 km will be fenced at the initial stage. The work will be taken up later according to availability of Centre funds. The Border Road Task Force will implement the project. Tomorrow's meeting will work out details about implementing the border fence scheme. Now a decision is to be reached on whether the pattern of fencing will be like that of the border of Punjab which may cost over Rs 1,200 crore. The Centre is reluctant to provide such a huge amount for erecting fences along Tripura's boundary line. A survey of the border fence was completed in November last year and a project report was placed before the Union home ministry. It was decided that initially work would be started for putting up fence covering a 135 km stretch from Sidhai in West Tripura up to Darlong basti in Dhalai district opposite Sylhet region of Bangladesh and another 115 km patch between Shukhna Chhari of state southernmost Sabrum sub-division and Boalkhali in Gandachhara region opposite Chittagong hills. The state government is persistent in its demand for completing the work as early as possible to 'effectively check' trans frontier movement of the armed militant groups. Sarkar told the Union home minister LK Advani several times about how the rebel groups were sneaking into Bangladesh after each of their actions of violence. The BSF officials earlier handed over a comprehensive report alongwith a map showing Chittagong hills and Sylhet areas where total 29 camps of the NLFT militants and the All Tripura Tiger Force were operating. The Union home secretary, Kamal Pandey, during his recent visit here told reporters that the matter of Northeast rebels camps in Bangladesh border areas had already been taken up "at the highest level in Dhaka." A senior state official said here, the work on erecting fence along border was likely to be seriously hampered in absence of regular flow of funds from Centre.