Nepal, India to set up working group to resolve border issues

Nepal and India are to set up a boundary working group at the surveyors-general level to resolve border issues as well as to renovate damaged pillars along the porous border, a media report said here today.
The two sides recently exchanged a diplomatic note on setting up the boundary working group (BWG) and they are likely to announce the mechanism during the upcoming visit of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Nepal.
Swaraj will be arriving in Kathmandu on a three-day official visit on July 25.
Between Nepal and India, almost all border issues were resolved except Susta and Kalapani, which frequently come up during bilateral talks.

The mandate for the mechanism would be to seek an amicable technical solution of unsettled boundary areas mainly at Susta and Kalapani and immediate solution to border encroachment on both sides, the report in the Kathmandu Post said quoting Foreign Ministry sources here.
However, Indian Embassy officials were not immediately available for comment.

The joint working group will also have mandate for erecting border pillars that have been missing for long, maintaining and renovating damaged pillars, and clearing the No-Man's Land of Dash Gaja along Nepal-India border so that encroachment does not recur.
The first meeting of the BWG will take place in Nepal as per the understanding.

The two sides will make field visits and according to agreed strip maps, settle the encroachment issue and other disputes along border areas.
According to the bilateral understanding, the two sides will follow the strip maps while erecting and demarcating the new border pillars.
The 28th meeting of the joint surveyors-general from Nepal and India had prepared 182 strip maps of Nepal-India boundary in 2007, excluding the controversial Susta (Nawalparasi) and Kalapani (Dharchula) stretches, and signed them subsequently, paving the way for higher authorities to ratify them, according to the report.