No light and identity papers for the people of enclaves

Arindam Sarkar

Confusion and uncertainty prevails. And in the last two weeks, the State government or the district administration of Coochbehar has done little for the development and rehabilitation of the 14, 856 people living in the enclaves on the Indian side. The fate of 950-odd people, who crossed over from the Bangladeshi enclaves to settle in India, is same.

The Indo-Bangla Land Border Agreement paved the way for swapping of land and population on the midnight of July 31. The process would end by June 30, 2016. There were 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in the Coochbehar district of India. Diplomatic niceties over, now people in the Indian enclaves are groping in the dark.

Back to the wall, a section of the people living in the Indian enclaves, along with the representatives of the Citizens’ Rights Coordination Committee (which is the successor of Bharat Bangladesh Enclave Exchange Committee), gave a deputation to the District Magistrate of Coochbehar P Ulaganathan few days back.

The delegation told the DM that since the residents of the enclaves have no proper identification papers that confirm their Indian citizenship, they should all be given a primary identification certificate. The residents of the enclaves should also be helped to open accounts in nationalized banks.


Since there is no electricity, people need kerosene to light their homes. Therefore, the district administration should immediately issue these people ration cards to buy kerosene at a subsidized rate. Also, the children’s education certificates should be given recognition by the State government.

“I am told the district administration would begin distributing primary identification certificates to the people of the enclaves from August 24. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is aware of our problems. We don’t want NGOs to work here. The CM should involve the health, PWD, rural development and PHE department to develop the 7,110 acres of land for the uplift of the people,” said Coordinator of the Citizens’ Rights Coordination Committee Diptiman Sengupta.

Out of the total 15, 815 people living in the enclaves in Bengal, almost 12,000 of them will vote in 2016 Assembly polls. The voters of the 51 enclaves fall under the Assembly constituencies of Dinhata, Sitai, Mathabhanga and Mekhliganj. Out of these, majority belongs to the Assembly segments of Dinhata and Mekhliganj.

Diptiman Sengupta said apart from development of infrastructure, plans are afoot to create employment opportunities for the people of the enclaves. He said there are five major water bodies here, which can provide employment to at least 700 families.

“Employment generation in the enclaves is a major thrust area. We will also develop cooperative farming of agriculture and livestock. We are trying to develop a system where the people would be involved from production to marketing stage without depending on middlemen,” said Diptiman Sengupta.

Finally, since this is a border area, the Citizens’ Rights Coordination Committee has decided to work to improve the Indo-Bangla bilateral relations in this zone to make life easy for the people living on the enclaves of both the sides.

“We will give thrust to the exchange programme of farmers. We will ensure that those who sell their land in Bangladesh to come here are able to get their money here smoothly and vice versa,” explained Diptiman Sengupta.

As things stand, life on the Indo-Bangla border following the Land Border Agreement is still far from happy. People have too many problems and the State government is yet to solve the difficulties.