New Delhi, Aug. 24: Over 50,000 residents living in Indian and Bangladeshi enclaves will be given the choice of citizenship, the Centre said today, if Manmohan Singh and Sheikh Hasina are able to strike a deal in Dhaka next month.

Replying to a supplementary question in the Rajya Sabha, Union home minister P. Chidambaram said people living in an enclave “shall be given the right of staying on where they are as nationals of the state” to which the area will be transferred. “That option is given to the people,” he said citing a 1974 agreement between Indira Gandhi and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib.

What it means is that residents of an Indian enclave in Bangladesh can opt to take Bangladeshi citizenship once the area is assimilated in Bangladesh.

Residents of enclaves are also free to return to their original country and it is that country’s responsibility to provide them land to settle down.

As all the Indian enclaves are close to Cooch Behar, what this means is that Bengal would have to rehabilitate people in Indian enclaves who want to come back to India.

“Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been in touch with the home minister on this front,” said a source.

Fifty-one Bangladeshi enclaves in India and 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh are to be exchanged and adverse possessions settled when the Indian Prime Minister, who is scheduled to leave for Dhaka in the first week of September, meets his Bangladeshi counterpart.

Chidambaram put the total number of people living in the enclaves at 51,590. The number includes 37,369 Indians, The Telegraph has learnt.

Sources said some enclaves are so small that they have single-digit populations. “Jamaldah Balapukhri, which is an Indian enclave, has just six or seven people,” said a source.

Chhit Panbari, a Bangladeshi enclave, has just 13 residents. Fifty-six of the enclaves are not populated, 37 of them Indian.