Assam-Nagaland renew neighbourly tie

Deputy Commissioners level joint coordination meeting between Mokokchung district of  Nagaland and Assam’s Sivasagar district was held at Mokokchung town in the ADC (Planning) conference hall on February 4 wherein it agreed to renew commitment to further cement the time-tested and age-old neighborly relationship between the people of the two states.
A DIPR report said Deputy Commissioner, Mokokchung, Sushil Kumar Patel led the officers of Mokokchung district while his Assam counterpart Virender Mittal headed the officers from Assam’s Sivasagar district at the closed-door meeting.
The meeting was chaired by Er. Temsuwati, DIO (NIC) Mokokchung, who is also one of the active members of the Border Peace Coordination Committee (A-N).
The Deputy Commissioner, Mokokchung, while welcoming Virender Mittal and the Superintendent of Police Sivasagar, BJ Kouligam, and their team of officers reiterated that his top most priority was to maintain peace and tranquility along the border through people to people contact and socio-economic relationship. Patel said that petty offences and border dispute should not be allowed to come in the way of peaceful co-existence.
Sushil Kumar Patel also advocated further augmentation of marketing local produces between the two states particularly in the border areas saying that it would help strengthen mutual relationship.
Sivasagar DC, Virender Mittal, in his address, reciprocated for maintaining peaceful co-existence and stated that people of Assam and Nagaland are interdependent and one cannot live without the other. 
The meeting strongly felt that ugly heads of suspicion, mistrust and misunderstanding should not be allowed to rise between the two States.
Keeping this in mind, Virender Mittal disclosed that Assam government has come up with ‘Outreach Programme’ in border districts which would be implemented through respective Deputy Commissioners.
He suggested his Mokokchung counterpart to come up with such programme in the border areas. He said “peaceful co-existence leads to accelerate overall development of the two states”. He also said frequent district and sub-divisional level meetings would help to address any law and order problem in the border areas.
Mokokchung SP, Aotemsu, and his Sivasagar counterpart, Kouligam, shared information on law and order situation and expressed their satisfaction over the prevailing atmosphere of peace in their respective areas.
ADC Tuli, Sentiwapang, and ADC Sivasagar, Din Morang, also shared their views on maintaining atmosphere of peace and tranquility on both sides.
In a bid to address local issues in the border locally, the meeting opined that local level Border Peace Committee should be revived in the border areas on either side.
Besides the district civil and police officers, the meeting was attended by District Forest Officers of the two districts.