BSF, BGB DG level talks gets underway in Guwahati

The 51st round of Director General level border coordination meeting between Border Security Force (India) and Border Guard Bangladesh began in Guwahati on Tuesday.

While a 12-member Indian delegation is being represented by BSF DG Rakesh Asthana, BGB DG Major General Md Shafeenul Islam is heading the 11- member BGB team.

The five-day talk from December 22- 26, will deliberate on discussing border related issues, and to enable better coordination between the two border guarding forces with special focus on addressing and streamlining mechanisms on how to jointly curb various trans-border crimes and timely sharing of information between both border guarding forces.

In this bi-annual conference, the concerned officials from prime minister’s office (PMO), Home Ministry, Foreign Ministry and senior BGB officials will represent the Bangladesh delegation in the conference while senior officials of BSF headquarters, frontier IGs and concerned officials of the Indian Home Ministry and External Affairs Ministry will represent the BSF delegation.

“There will be deliberations on developmental and infrastructure works, joint efforts for effective implementation of Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP) and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)”, a senior BSF official said.

He also said that protection of river banks in the border areas of the both countries, effective implementation of the Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP) for border management and quickest resolution of frontier related issues and undertaking steps for further strengthening the mutual trust and friendship between the both border forces will also be discussed in the conference.

The conference will conclude with the signing of a Joint Record of Discussions (JRD) on December 25, the official added.

The last BSF-BGB border Coordination Conference was held little late from its schedule in September this year in Dhaka from September 16-19.

Way back in 1975, the two sides envisaged that that there should be frequent contacts between the border authorities of the two concerned countries to discuss the matters of immediate administrative concern and an Indian delegation under leadership of then BSF DG Ashwani Kumar and the Bangladesh delegation under the leadership of the former BGB DG Major General Quazi Golam Dastgir met at Kolkata on December 2, 1975, for the first time to discuss mutual border problems.

Since then, the meetings between DG BSF and DG BGB were held annually alternatively in India and Bangladesh till 1993.