Border talks raise hopes for Mizoram areca nut farmers

Assam, Mizoram agree to crack down harder on the smuggling of areca nuts from other countries

GUWAHATI

A fresh round of talks to resolve the decades-old boundary dispute with Assam, has raised the hopes of areca or betel nut farmers in Mizoram, who have been the victims of a crackdown on areca nuts smuggled from Myanmar.

The high-level teams led by the Assam’s Border Protection and Development Department Minister Atul Bora and Mizoram’s Home Minister Lalchamliana met in Guwahati on Thursday for arriving at an amicable solution to the vexed boundary dispute between the two States.

Mizoram agreed to furnish a list of the villages, their areas, geo-spatial extent, the ethnicity of the residents and other relevant information within three months for Assam to examine and respond.

A key takeaway of the meeting was the agreement between the two States to address the issue faced by Mizoram’s areca nut farmers in transporting their produce to Assam and other parts of the country.

Both sides acknowledged the unrest among Mizoram’s areca nut farmers but agreed to continue the “zero tolerance policy” against the transportation of smuggled areca nuts from other countries.

Areca nut growers in Mizoram, particularly the Hachhek area of Mamit district, have been agitating for months against the “unofficial ban” on the transportation of their produce deemed by enforcement agencies to be the stuff smuggled from Myanmar. Some 80% of the farmers across 34 villages in the Hachhek area grow areca nuts.