NEW DELHI, Jan 20: Union Home Minister, Amit Shah on Thursday expressed happiness over the first-ever concrete initiative taken by the governments of Meghalaya and Assam to settle their decades’ old interstate border dispute and assured both Meghalaya Chief Minister 
Conrad Sangma and his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sharma that the Home Ministry would go over the common report submitted by the two sides.
The two CMs will meet Shah again after the Republic Day functions.
Conrad took to Twitter after the meeting and said that the Home Minister assured them that the Centre will examine the report in detail.
The Assam and Meghalaya CMs met the Union Home Minister in Delhi and apprised him of the reports of the regional committee on the border issue. Both Conrad and Himanta left the national capital after the meeting and did not speak to waiting media.
Himanta in his tweet said that they apprised the Home Minister about the outcomes of discussions held between Assam & Meghalaya governments to resolve the border disputes amicably. “We’re grateful for his guidance,” he added.
The Union Home Secretary, Ajay Bhalla, an Assam-Meghalaya cadre officer was present during the meeting.
The Union Home Ministry is now expected to finalise a “conclusion” but more or less the structure has been reached after a long-drawn exercise between the two states, Sangma had said. The boundary demarcation will be done after the due procedure in Parliament, he said.
According to the joint final set of recommendations given by the committees, out of 36.79 sq km disputed area taken up for settlement in the first phase, Assam will be getting full control of 18.51 sq km area and Meghalaya of 18.28 sq km.
Out of the 12 points of disputes between Assam and Meghalaya, six areas with relatively less critical differences were taken up in the first phase.
Meghalaya was carved out of Assam as a separate state in 1972 and it had challenged the Assam Reorganisation Act, 1971, leading to disputes in 12 areas along the 884.9-km-long interstate border. (With PTI inputs)
