West Bengal CM transfers land to BSF for fencing along Bangladesh border

Addressing a BSF land transfer meeting, Adhikari said the process marked the beginning of a larger initiative to improve border security in the state.

“The land will be handed over to the BSF within two weeks. Initially, land covering a 27-km stretch, along the India-Bangladesh international boundary, is being handed over,” he said.

Highlighting the need to expedite border infrastructure, the CM said a sizeable portion of West Bengal’s international boundary still remained unfenced. “In West Bengal, around 1,600 km of the total 2,200 km border with Bangladesh has already been fenced, while nearly 600 km remains unfenced,” he said.

Targeting the previous TMC government, Adhikari alleged that it had failed to cooperate on border infrastructure because of “vote bank politics and appeasement policies”.

The total length of the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal is 2,216 km, of which 1,648 km is fenced. Of the remaining 569 km, around 112-km portion cannot be fenced owing to geographical conditions.

Of the remaining 456 km, sources say land acquisition was yet to be initiated for around 149-km stretch and the remaining 229-km portion is at various stages of the acquisition process.

As far as the break-up of this 229 km of unfenced stretch is concerned, around 31 km of it was awaiting West Bengal Government’s approval for quite some time.

For the 182-km stretch, payment had been made by the Centre but the land had not been handed over by the state government. This is likely to be sorted out in the coming days, sources add.

As far as the remaining 16 km of the stretch is concerned, pending valuation work and issues related to payments too will be worked out in the near future, assert sources, adding that the land acquisition process had been dragging due to delays on part of the previous government.