Nagaland: Consultative meet to discuss FMR, Protected Area Permit

Kohima, April 23 (IANS) A crucial Consultative Meeting would be held on April 30 to discuss the Free Movement Regime (FMR) across the India-Myanmar border and Protected Area Permit (PAP) in Nagaland, among other issues, officials said here on Wednesday.

The Nagaland Home Department has called the meeting, which will be attended by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, two Deputy Chief Ministers T.R. Zeliang and Yanthungo Patton, Assembly Speaker Sharingain Longkumer, the Deputy Speaker, all the Ministers, and Members of Parliament.

An official of the Home Department said that all the MLAs, Advisors, the Chief Secretary, along with other senior officials of the state government and leaders of 27 other civil society organisations, would be present in the meeting.

The day-long meeting would also discuss the maintenance of peace in Nagaland in the wake of recent political developments, and the enforcement of the Inner Line Permit (ILP), the official said.

Meanwhile, an all-party delegation led by Chief Minister Rio would soon meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah to discuss the decades-old Naga political issue and concerns about the border fencing and FMR across the India-Myanmar border.

A senior Nagaland minister earlier said that in the previous Assembly session (March 3 to 8), the Chief Minister had suggested that an all-party delegation would meet the Union Home Minister to apprise him about the contentious Naga political issues, which always dominate politics in the state. He said that besides the Naga political issue, FMR, PAP, ILP and border fencing along the India-Myanmar border are the other vital issues to be discussed with the Union Home Minister.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) last year announced that the FMR, which allows people residing along the India-Myanmar border to travel 16 km into each other’s territory without a visa, would be scrapped soon. Instead, the MHA decided to replace the FMR to adopt a new scheme to issue a pass to the border residents of both India and Myanmar living within 10 km on either side of the frontier to regulate cross-border movements.

The Nagaland Assembly on March 7 unanimously decided that an all-party delegation would meet the Union Home Minister to explain to him the “sentiment and resentment of the Naga people” against the MHA’s decision to cancel the FMR between India and Myanmar.

Participating in the discussion on the issue, the Chief Minister had told the house that the border movement restriction would affect the long-standing historical, ethnic, social, cultural, traditional and economic ties of Nagas living on both sides of the India-Myanmar border. The Nagaland and Mizoram governments and a large number of political parties and civil societies in the two northeastern states have been opposing both border fencing and the scrapping of the FMR.

Four northeastern states -- Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, and Mizoram -- share a 1,643-km unfenced border with Myanmar. The MHA had earlier decided to erect fencing on the entire porous border, known for the smuggling of arms, ammunition, narcotics and various other contrabands, at a cost of Rs 31,000 crore.

--IANS

sc/vd