Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, who heads the State Assembly’s Select Committee on border disputes, has convened a meeting of the committee along with the Local Committees of the districts bordering the neighbouring state, namely Mon, Longleng, Mokokchung, Wokha, Tseminyu, Niuland, Dimapur and Peren, on 1 September at the Chief Minister’s Office in Kohima to examine the Nagaland-Assam border issue.

Following the constitution of a 10 member Select Committee by the Nagaland Legislative Assembly during the last monsoon session held on 5 August 2021, the committee had held its first meeting on 14 September 2021, wherein the committee had discussed at length to have an amicable settlement with its neighboring state Assam.

The committee had also decided that both the states should form local bodies composed of indigenous people in the border areas to sit together on the advice of the state governments. Subsequently, eight local committees from the eight districts in Nagaland bordering Assam were constituted this year and the same has been constituted in Assam.

The meeting on 1 September 2022 will be the first meeting between the State Assembly’s Select Committee and the eight district Local Committees of Nagaland.

It may be mentioned that after a series of meetings between the two states, the state governments of Nagaland and Assam have agreed for an out-of-court settlement for the long-pending inter-state boundary dispute. Both the states have also agreed to share royalty from petroleum and natural gas from the disputed area.