To curb illegal immigration from Bangladesh, the home ministry has asked the West Bengal government to speed up the construction of border outposts (BoPs) in the Marxist bastion. The home ministry, which has taken a re-look at security measures to enhance vigil on borders following the 26/11 terror attack, is apparently peeved at the tardy pace of work on the Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.
During the recent chief ministers conference in February, it was noted that the construction of 31 BoPs could not be started in the Marxist bastion due to the “non finalisation of land acquisition by the state government.” The Centre’s aim is to construct more BoPs to reduce the distance for “effective domination’’ of the borders by the border guarding forces. Concerns have already been raised over illegal immigration causing “unexpected” demographic changes in Assam and West Bengal. The porous borders are also being used by terror outfits to foment trouble in other parts of the country, a government official said.
The official said that the ministry is also in the process of putting in place an effective monitoring system to check whether a Bangladeshi had stayed on in India or had gone back to Bangladesh after the expiry of his visa. Having set a target of construction of 83 BoPs in the state this year, the home ministry has said that land acquisition by the West Bengal government needs to be expedited to complete the project in a time-bound manner.
The government has sanctioned 509 BoPs along the Indo-Bangladesh border (383) and Indo-Pakistan (126) borders. A total of 223 BoPs are required to be constructed in West Bengal, Assam (06), Meghalaya (17), Tripura (64) , Mizoram (73), J&K (38), Punjab (01), Rajasthan (23) and Gujarat (64). Among measures to enhance vigil in border areas, the government has recently proposed to undertake upgradation and construction of strategic roads.