Morung Express News
Dimapur | January 6
The Nagaland state government will reportedly make a bid with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for withdrawing the Protected Area Permit (PAP). According to official sources, the decision to push the Centre for relaxing the travel restriction on foreign nationals, again, was taken by the state Cabinet at a meeting on January 6. Tourism promotion was purportedly the intent behind the bid.
The MHA, had in mid-December 2024, re-invoked the Foreigners (Protected Areas) Order, 1958, in three northeastern states— Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram after a lapse of 15 years. It means that foreign nationals intending to visit these three states, and other states in the country where this order is in effect, have to mandatorily obtain the PAP, also known as the Restricted Area Permit, from the MHA.
The travel restriction was temporarily relaxed during the UPA regime in 2010-11 in a bid to promote tourism. The relaxation was rescinded by the MHA in December 2024 in what was reported to be security concerns vis-à-vis influx of foreign nationals in the aftermath of the political turmoil in neighboring Bangladesh, the almost 4 years long internal violent conflict in Myanmar, and the ethnic conflict in the state of Manipur.
Other topics that came up for discussion in the Cabinet meeting included the Naga political issue and the Frontier Nagaland Territory (FNT) proposed by the Centre for the eastern Nagaland bloc.
As per the sources, the Cabinet was of the consensus that the Centre and the negotiating Naga Political Groups should expedite arriving at an amicable solution. As far as the FNT was concerned, it maintained that it is in agreement with the stand collectively taken by the 20 legislators of eastern Nagaland— the Eastern Nagaland Legislators Union (ENLU).
