2 months ago
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One of the cardinal reasons down the hold successful onshore acquisition to erect fences on the Bangladesh borderline successful West Bengal was the argumentation followed by the erstwhile Trinamool Congress government, according to a 2023 affidavit filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) successful the Supreme Court.
The MHA had, done an affidavit, informed the Supreme Court that the West Bengal authorities had not adopted the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency successful Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR Act), 2013, nether which the authorities tin instrumentality possession of immoderate onshore needed for a nationalist purpose.
Then Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, successful the affidavit, said, “The West Bengal Government follows a acold slower, much analyzable Direct Land Purchase Policy adjacent for nationalist information projects specified arsenic borderline fencing. Due to the non-cooperation from the State authorities regarding resolving assorted issues of onshore acquisition, sizeable delays person occurred successful acquiring the indispensable land, thereby impeding the timely completion of fencing successful West Bengal on the Indo-Bangladesh border, which is simply a captious nationalist information project.”
On May 11, soon aft assuming powerfulness successful the State for the archetypal time, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities announced that it had decided to transportation onshore to the Border Security Force (BSF) wrong the adjacent 45-days.
According to submissions made earlier the Calcutta High Court successful January, the West Bengal Government had handed implicit 78 km of borderline onshore to the BSF implicit the past 3 years, portion 121 km of borderline magnitude was yet to beryllium transferred. Of the 285.25 km borderline magnitude required by the BSF crossed the 9 districts, including Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Malda, Dakshin Dinajpur, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, and Cooch Behar, the State Cabinet had fixed clearance for 256 km.
Data presented earlier the tribunal showed that the onshore purchase, measuring astir 269 acres on 48.49 km of border, had been completed but was yet to beryllium handed implicit to the BSF. The acquisition and acquisition of astir 1,156 acres remained pending, the information further showed.
While proceeding a nationalist involvement litigation, the Calcutta High Court asked the counsels of the State and the Union Government “regarding applicability and feasibility of acquisition by invoking Section 40 of the Act of 2013.”
Section 40 of the 2013 Act, “in cases of urgency,” enables the due authorities to instrumentality possession of immoderate onshore needed for a nationalist purpose. The full magnitude of the Indo–Bangladesh borderline successful West Bengal is 22,16.7 km, retired of which 1,647.696 km has already been covered by fence.
The MHA informed Parliament past twelvemonth that of the remaining 569.004 km, which is yet to beryllium covered by obstruction and different borderline infrastructure work, 112.780 km is non-feasible for fencing and 456.224 km is feasible for operation of fencing and related work.
