SHILLONG: The state government has submitted a proposal to set up seven-eight more border haats along the Indo-Bangladesh border to add to the existing two.
Border Areas Development Minister Lahkmen Rymbui said that the government has submitted the proposal to the Centre through the department of Commerce and Industries. He said that the proposal will be taken up not only by the Centre, but it has to be approved by Bangladesh as well. Stressing on the need to develop the international border villages, he added that these were well off before partition since there was free trade adding that the state government has undertaken some roads and school building projects for the border areas.
“ The schemes are demand-driven and we allot funds as and when funds are available,” he said.
Talking about the poor road and mobile connectivity in the international border areas, he added that the Centre is aggressively pursuing the matter by installing mobile towers.
As far as road connectivity is concerned, he added that despite limited resources, the state government has taken up some internal road projects, but the terrain and topography of the areas pose a serious challenge. It may be mentioned that the core programme implemented by the Border Areas Development Department is Border Area Development Programme (BADP). BADP was a 100 per cent centrally-funded initiative till 2015-16. However, since 2016-17, under the rationalisation of centrally sponsored schemes, BADP has been classified as core centrally sponsored scheme (CSS) following the funding pattern of 90:10 per cent by the central and state government respectively.
The main objective of the programme is to meet the special developmental needs of the people living in remote and inaccessible areas situated near the international border.
The schemes/works like construction/maintenance of roads, water supply, education, sports, filling gaps in infrastructure, security, organisation of early childhood care and education centre, education for physically handicapped and backward sections etc. are being undertaken under the BADP.
Preference is given to the villages/habitations which are closer to the border line.
