Shillong, May 6: Chief minister Donkupar Roy today said Delhi needed to take up with Dhaka the issue of adverse possession of land in the Meghalaya sector along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Replying to a question by Congress legislator Lahken Rymbui, Roy said the state government had reminded the Centre of the need to settle the land dispute.

He also said Delhi had at present decided not to take up fencing in the adversely held areas along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

He said the work had been temporarily kept in abeyance after residents of the border areas objected to the fencing, saying they would lose cultivable land.

He said the co-ordination committee on border fencing had visited the border areas, especially in Jaintia Hills, and recommended a fresh survey.

Roy said the state government had urged the Centre to increase the number of BSF outposts along the border to protect the lives and property of the people.

The areas under adverse possession were created when East Pakistan and India demarcated the international boundary in the mid-1960s. There are 11 such areas in the Meghalaya sector.