SHILLONG — Meghalaya has formally petitioned the Union government to acquire and pay direct compensation for cultivable acreage isolated behind security barriers along the state's 443-kilometre international border with Bangladesh.
Farmers face losing their livelihoods. As central agencies accelerate construction to seal the frontier, swathes of fertile agricultural land risk being stranded on the wrong side of the physical fence. The state cabinet wants New Delhi to purchase the cut-off plots outright rather than abandon agrarian families to economic ruin.
Local clans and traditional village dorbars across the border belt do not oppose the security barrier itself. Their resistance stems entirely from the physical geography of the barricades, which are erected inside Indian territory and sever tillers from ancestral fields.
Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong confirmed that the grievance spans the entire frontier, from the rugged Garo Hills in the west to the coal-rich tracts of East Jaintia Hills in the east.
The border fencing is right from Garo Hills up to East Jaintia Hills; the landowners or the village authorities are not against border fencing. The only issue that the landowners have a reservation about is that once the fencing is completed, the land beyond the fencing will automatically become no man's land. If it falls into no man's land, then they cannot go for cultivation, so it becomes a wasteland.
Prestone Tynsong, Deputy Chief Minister of Meghalaya
WITHOUT state intervention, hundreds of subsistence farmers will lose unfettered daily access to betel leaf vines, areca nut orchards, and paddy terraces. Once security gates lock behind barbed wire, cultivation stalls. Weeds take over. Productive soil turns fallow within seasons.
"So the concerned landowners want the Government of India to take over and pay them the compensation," Tynsong stated. "This issue has been communicated to the Centre and we are waiting for the outcome of the communication."
Political pressure on the border issue extends beyond the ruling coalition. Opposition leader and former chief minister Mukul Sangma has repeatedly flagged the plight of border residents, demanding urgent central intervention to protect villagers who stand to lose their sole economic assets to national security infrastructure.
Past administrative foot-dragging compounds local distrust. The Meghalaya High Court pulled up authorities over an eight-year delay in disbursing fencing compensation to affected rural families, sternly categorising the prolonged administrative stalling as an abuse of power. For farmers already alienated from their fields, bureaucratic paralysis in New Delhi risks repeating that exact injury.
| Frontier Parameter | Official Metric / Status |
|---|---|
| Total Meghalaya-Bangladesh Border | 443 Kilometres |
| Affected Border Sectors | Garo Hills to East Jaintia Hills |
| Primary Stakeholder Demand | Complete Central Acquisition & Monetary Compensation |
| Administrative Status | Formal Proposal Submitted to Union Government |
| Judicial Precedent | High Court Reprimand Over 8-Year Payout Delay |
New Delhi must now review the state's proposal, with the Ministry of Home Affairs expected to determine whether to budget dedicated land-acquisition capital for Meghalaya before construction teams push through the remaining unfenced gaps.