Laborers construct a fence along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Dhubri district of Assam. A file picture

Guwahati, April 3: The porous Indo-Bangladesh border is unlikely to be sealed before December this year, the minister for implementation of the Assam Accord, Bhumidhar Barman, told the Assembly.

In a statement on the status of border fencing, Barman today said the third phase of work undertaken by the National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC) was scheduled to be completed by December 31. The stretch of the border fencing work under the PWD would, however, be over by next month, he said.

On Monday, the last date for sealing the border, the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) had demanded Barman’s resignation for his failure to complete border fencing and also called for boycotting of programmes attended by the minister.

The Opposition demanded thatan all-party MLA team be sent to the border areas before apprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the problem.

A 2005 meeting of representatives of Delhi, Dispur and the AASU had set 2006 as the target for completion of work. The deadline was revised to March 31, 2008, when they met again to review the progress of the project.

Barman assured the House that he would give a detailed statement highlighting the progress of the fencing work.

He said in the second phase, the PWD had undertaken work to fence a 32.461-km stretch of the border from Sunday.

Fencing of a 14.263-km stretch has been completed, Barman said, adding that the department had fixed April 30 as the deadline to fence the remaining stretch.

Of the 57.97-km stretch, the NBCC had already fenced 46.48 km of the border and the remaining portion would be completed by December 31, he said.

Parliamentary affairs minister Bharat Chandra Narah told the House that the state government was preparing a white paper on the various steps to be taken for implementation of the accord.