GUWAHATI: Insisting on quality, the BJP led coalition government in Assam has urged the Centre to construct fences on the Assam-Bangladesh border under the supervision of Indian Army. “We’ve to recheck the quality of the construction work already completed.
We need a fencing of quality; one that can protect people and thwart the smuggling of cattle and arms, infiltration of the illegal (Bangladeshi) immigrants and the movement of the insurgents (of Northeast),” Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal told reporters at a press conference in Guwahati on Thursday on the occasion of his government’s completion of 100 days in power.
“The Army had supervised the 700-km fencing work on the India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir and the construction there was completed within six months. We already had a series of meetings with the Central government. We want that the Army supervise the fencing work on the Assam-Bangladesh border,” he categorically said.
Apart from Assam, Tripura, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Mizoram share the 4096-km India-Bangladesh border. The length of the border which Assam shares is 262-km, and according to Sonowal’s redecessor Tarun Gogoi, 97.75% of the fencing work has been completed. But during Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to the border in January this year, he had noticed some gaps in patches where the construction was already completed.
Sonowal said his government was committed to seal the border on a war-footing. Ahead of Assembly polls in Assam, BJP president Amit Shah had committed that the border would be sealed in such a way that “even the birds of Bangladesh will not be able to fly into India”.
Talking about his government’s completion of 100 days in power, Sonowal said the time was too less for them to fulfil the commitments made in the BJP’s Vision Document. “We have miles to go. The biggest challenges for us were to give corruption-free governance and respite to people from flood and erosion…In the third and fourth grade state government jobs, we have done away with the system of oral interview because it was here where corruption used to take place,” he said.
Sonowal reiterated that his government would maintain zero tolerance in its fight against corruption. “We will not tolerate corruption and I made it amply clear to all my ministers and the officials. In the past 100 days, none of my ministers indulged in any corrupt practices. The people voted us to power for change. We will try and fulfil their dreams and aspirations,” Sonowal signed off.