GUWAHATI, Sept 4 - Since the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985 till June 2017, a total of 86,489 persons have been declared as foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunals. Of these, 29,663 have been pushed back and 71 deported to Bangladesh.
Another 41,033 have been absconding and 833 are being kept in detention camps. As of now, 1,87,985 cases are pending with the Foreigners Tribunals.
Revealing this in the Assembly in reply to a question by AGP legislator Phani Bhushan Choudhury today, Water Resources Minister Keshab Mahanta, who was replying on behalf of the Chief Minister, said that of the 263-km Assam-Bangladesh land boundary, portions totalling 61.49 km were unfenced. Similarly, some stretches of the 48.11-km riverine border were also open.
As part of the Centre�s intervention for foolproof security along the riverine border, the 39th High Level Empowered Committee under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has approved an amount of Rs 86.83 crore for �Technological Solution for Border Domination�, the Assembly was told.
�The Centre has sanctioned an amount of Rs 86.83 crore for installation of high-tech measures for riverine border protection. These include use of electro-optic sensors, water robots, cameras, sonars, radars, tethered UAV, gyro/GPS, optical fibre cable, etc.,� he said.
On the National Register of Citizens (NRC) implementation, the minister while replying to question by AGP legislator Ramendra Narayan Kalita, said that 96.08 per cent of the exercise had been completed and that the draft NRC would be published on December 31 this year. Claims and grievances will be settled after that, he added.
The Centre has so far released Rs 782.73 crore for NRC update works, of which Rs 740.18 crore has been spent, the minister said, adding, on the process for detection and deportation of illegal migrants (foreigners), a total of Rs 83,30,95,014 has been spent since 2012-13 till March 2017.
To another question by Nurul Huda, Mahanta said that the State at the moment had 1,25,155 �D� voters.
