SHILLONG: Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said the state government has sent a letter to the Chief Minister of Assam to fix a date for further dialogue on inter-state border issue.
Replying to a supplementary question by Congress MLA George Lyngdoh during the question hour in the Assembly on Monday, he expressed optimism that the date for the dialogue would be fixed soon.
Earlier, he said the issue of border dispute would keep coming up pending solution.
As per the statement of Tynsong, the number of cases and incidents that took place due to inter-state border dispute in West Jaintia Hills was 4 in 2017-18, 6 in 2018-19 and 10 in 2019-20.
In Ri-Bhoi, the cases reported were 9 in 2017-18, 4 in 2018-19 and 8 in 2019-20 and in West Khasi Hills, the cases reported were 2 in 2017-18 and 6 each in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
In West Garo Hills, there were no case or incident reported in 2017-18 and 2019-20 and there was only one incident in 2018-19.
As for the steps taken by the government to defuse the problem, he said the respective Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police immediately took up the issues with their respective counterparts in Assam to defuse the problem.
A Chief Secretary level meeting was also held on June 21 this year to discuss border issues and Standard Operating Procedures for better communication in future.