Asem Bhakta Singh, Special Correspondent North East
Imphal: (Waari Singbul Network) Chief minister Nongthombam Biren Singh on Thursday lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi , Union home minister Amit Shah and other Central leaders for taking the significant decision to fence the entire 1643-km Indo-Myanmar border and immediate suspension of the Free Movement Regime (FMR).
Talking to reporters at a hurriedly summoned media conference on his office premises in the evening, the CM also extolled the Central leader for listening to the voice of the people of Manipur.
A few hours ahead, Shah, taking to X, said the MHA has decided that the FMR between the two neighboring countries be scrapped to ensure the internal security of the county and to maintain the demographic structure of India’s North Eastern States bordering Myanmar.
“Since the Ministry of External Affairs is currently in the process of scrapping it, MHA has recommended the immediate suspension of the FMR,” Shah continued.
Biren said his government has been giving priority in keeping its people and the state’s boundary safe and secure.
The BJP-led government, since its formation in the state in 2017, has been working in different ways to check the demographic balance in population growth, drugs trafficking and other concerns like border fencing and uncheck FMR, he added.
One Km stretch of fencing through a Hybrid Surveillance System (HSS) is under execution in Manipur, bordering Myanmar, Biren said, adding fence works covering 20 km in vulnerable areas have also been approved, and the work will start soon.
He also thanked the Centre’s move to set up a high-powered committee for considering the challenges arising from “fast population growth and demographic changes”.
Appreciating Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for announcing it in her interim budget speech, acknowledging what the people sought, Biren maintained that all the positive steps taken up by the Centre and the state government are for the betterment of the future generations.
On his government’s “War on Drugs” campaign, the CM informed that the government has not stopped its work of destructing poppy plantation.
Through satellite mapping, identification of areas with poppy cultivation had been done through satellite mapping, he said , adding that such cultivation would be destroyed by the end of the current month.
Combined teams of Narcotics and Affairs of Border ( NAB),a unit under Manipur police department, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) , state forces and forest department would destroy the narcotics plants, the CM said.
