LBA IMPLEMENTATION Enclave people may get temporary citizenships [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

LBA IMPLEMENTATION Enclave people may get temporary citizenships

Local June 12, 2015

The government is considering issuing provisional citizenship certificates to the enclave people to avoid a ‘lengthy legal procedure’ as the implementation of Land Boundary Agreement begins from July 31 midnight, said officials concerned.
The local administrations might be entrusted with the task to provide citizenship certificates to the enclave residents on the basis of the joint headcount conducted at all 162 enclaves in July 2011, said a senior official at the home affairs ministry.
Bangladesh-India Joint Boundary Working Group is set to hold its meeting on July 16 in Kolkata to finalise ‘further details’ of the modalities for exchange of bordering enclaves between Bangladesh and India, according to the official.
‘The JBWG meeting in Kolkata is to finalise modalities for transfer of enclaves and movement of people from an enclave to the mainland in India or Bangladesh, as may be the case,’ said home ministry’s additional secretary Abu Hena Rahmatul Muneem, who leads JBWG from Bangladesh side.
He told New Age on Thursday the JBWD meeting would be held on June 16, subject to the approval of the prime minister.
JBWG would include, among others, officials from land survey department, bureau of statistics and foreign ministry.
The joint committee is supposed to find out ways to facilitate transfer of the territories and travel of the residents who would exercise the option of moving from an enclave to the mainland of Bangladesh or India.
The officials concerned would prepare records of rights relating to land for smooth transfer of territories and settlement of land ownership, according to officials.
Representatives of the two countries would later conduct a joint visit to the enclaves on either side of the border to inform the residents of the landlocked areas of their rights relating to nationality and citizenship as stipulated in the 1974 agreement and the 2011 protocol, said officials at the home ministry.
They would also identify the residents who wish to continue to retain the nationality they hold prior to the actual transfer of territory.
A total of 111 Indian enclaves are located in Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari and Panchagarh of Bangladesh while 51 Bangladesh enclaves are in Cooch Behar of West Bengal.
‘Bangladesh and India agree that the Bangladeshi enclaves in India and Indian enclaves in Bangladesh exchanged in pursuant to the 1974 Agreement and 2011 Protocol shall stand transferred to the other with effect from the midnight of July 31, 2015,’ said the letters exchanged between the foreign secretaries of Bangladesh and India on June 6, setting out the subsequent steps to implement the agreement and the protocol.
The travel of the residents who exercise options of moving from an enclave to the mainland of Bangladesh or India, as the case may be, will be arranged by the respective governments through cooperation as mutually agreed.
And it will take place by November 30, 2015 and the entry and exit points would be Haldibari, Burimari and Banglabandha on the Bangladesh-India border, according to the letters.
During Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka, Bangladesh foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque and Indian external affairs ministry secretary S Jaishankar on June 6 exchanged instruments of ratification of the 1974 land boundary agreement and the 2011 protocol bringing an end to the miseries of the enclave people, who remained stateless since the 1947 Partition of Indian.
The Mujib-Indira Land Boundary Agreement was signed in 1974 to facilitate exchange of enclaves, transfer of adversely possessed areas and demarcation of 6.5 kilometres of unmarked border lands.
The enclave people in the territories of the two countries will have ‘the right of staying where they are, as nationals of the state to which the areas are transferred’ as per the agreement.
India will hand over 111 enclaves measuring 17,160.63 acres of land with a population of 37,383 to Bangladesh and take over 51 enclaves covering an area of 7,110.02 acres with a population of 14,090 under the agreement.
The finance ministry has proposed an additional allocation of Tk200 crore in the national budget for 2015-16 fiscal year for development programmes in the enclaves merging with the Bangladesh mainland.