Nagaland urges centre to re-impose Protected Area Permit along India-Myanmar border

Nagaland government urged the Centre to review its decision on the cross-border movement along the India-Myanmar border and re-imposition of the Protected Area Permit (PAP).

Nagaland’s Power, Parliamentary Affairs Minister and government spokesperson K. G. Kenye, while talking to the media said that considering the state’s ethnic position, tradition and customary system, the government of India must continue the Free Movement Regime (FMR) and re-impose the Protected Area Permit (PAP).

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently adopted a new scheme to issue a pass to the border residents of both India and Myanmar living within 10 km on either side of the frontier to regulate cross-border movements.


The new scheme would replace the previously suspended FMR, which earlier allowed citizens residing close to both sides of the India-Myanmar border to move 16 km into each other's territory without a passport or visa. Four northeastern states -- Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km), Nagaland (215 km), and Mizoram (510 km) -- share a 1,643 km unfenced border with Myanmar.

Kenye expressed the state government’s objection to the new cross-border movement system.

“We respect the Centre’s security concerns, but at the same time Nagaland’s ethnic situation is unique and requires a different approach,” he said and added that the state has not yet received any official response from the Centre regarding its earlier request for a review of both FMR and PAP.

After the Nagaland cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on January 6 urged the MHA to exclude the state from the purview of the Protected Area Permit (PAP) to promote tourism and to facilitate the visit of foreign tourists in the state.

Several organisations in Northeast India are opposing the erection of fencing. The state assembly of the neighbouring state of Mizoram on February 28 last year adopted a unanimous resolution opposing the Centre's decision to fence the India-Myanmar border and eliminate the Free Movement Regime (FMR).

The Nagaland government and almost all organisations in the state are also against the border fencing and abolishing of the FMR.

The Nagaland Assembly on March 1 last year unanimously passed a resolution urging the Centre to reconsider its decision to fence the India-Myanmar border and scrap the FMR between the two countries.