Pillar constructed at Assam-Meghalaya border to initiate demarcation

The event was celebrated on Friday by the installation of a border pillar in the Hahim area of Kamrup district, which borders Meghalaya.

An agreement between the two states in 2022, in front of Home Minister Amit Shah, led to the installation of the pillar, transforming years of paperwork and negotiations into a concrete on-ground reality in six of the twelve disputed areas, which span more than 2,700 square kilometers along the 884-kilometer interstate border. The differences in the other six areas are still being worked out.

The Survey of India was able to redraw the interstate border between the two states at these six sites thanks to the agreement. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, and Conrad Sangma, the chief minister of Meghalaya, inked the agreement in New Delhi.

One of the longest-running interstate disputes in the northeast is the Assam-Meghalaya boundary dispute, which has its roots in administrative and historical complications and dates back to 1972, when Meghalaya was separated from Assam.

The Meghalaya government's refusal to accept the Assam Reorganization (Meghalaya) Act of 1969, which established Meghalaya's borders when it was first made an autonomous state and then a full-fledged state on January 21, 1972, is the root of the border dispute, in which both sides claim overlapping areas because of historical and administrative ambiguities.