Newmai News Network Shillong | April 19 While the solution to the decade old Assam-Meghalaya boundary row remains elusive, former Chief Minister and leader of the opposition, Dr. Mukul Sangma on Thursday said that that for the past five years Assam is buying time to study Meghalaya's claim over the areas of difference, despite the state government submitting the document to Assam in 2013. Pointing out that the then government had in 2010, soon after the Langpih incident, completed the whole exercise of documentation to further strengthen or reinforced the position in respect of the claims over the areas of difference along Assam Meghalaya border in favour of Meghalaya, Dr. Sangma said, “This exercise having been completed between 2010-2013, this whole documentation in course of our engagement with our counterpart that is government of Assam we have placed this whole documentation to our counterpart, and they have maintained that they will require some time to study this and corroborate their own documents and so our counterpart Assam is seeking some more time to complete the whole exercise of studying this whole documentation.” “It is time for government of Assam to mutually agree upon resumption of talks based on this whole documentation so that we resolve this long pending interstate boundary dispute issue," said Dr. Sangma. Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma meanwhile said, “We are trying to talk to Assam and try and find an amicable solution. The discussion is going on at the Chief Secretary level, so let the discussion continue. It is not appropriate for me to say when it will be resolved. How will it be resolved?” Acknowledging that it is a complicated issue and been there for decades now, the Chief Minister, said, “We are trying to move forward in this but in the process we want to ensure that our people don’t suffer and the most important people living in the border areas should not suffer because of the dispute that two states are having.” Speaking about claims based on respective records and maps of both states, Conard, said, “There might be differences in our maps and in our records we are having and we stand by our records, we stand by our stand that these areas are within Meghalaya but Assam also stand by its own counter claim therefore discussions are on.” It may be mentioned that there are 12 areas of differences at present between Assam and Meghalaya. These are as follows – Upper Tarabari, Gizang Reserve Forest, Hahim area, Langpih area, Bordwar area, Nongwah Mawtamur area, Pilangkata Khanapara area, Deshdemoria area, Khanduli area, Umkhyrni Psiar area, Areas of Block I and Block II and Ratacherra area.
