Free Movement Regime between India and Myanmar scrapped: Amit Shah

Union Minister Amit Shah said the decision was taken to maintain the demographic structure of India's northeastern states bordering Myanmar

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday announced that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided that the Free Movement Regime (FMR) between India and Myanmar, an arrangement that allows people from either nation to enter up to 16 km without travel documents, be scrapped.

"It is Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi Ji's resolve to secure our borders. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided that the Free Movement Regime [FMR] between India and Myanmar be scrapped to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India's northeastern states bordering Myanmar. Since the Ministry of External Affairs [MEA] is currently in the process of scrapping it, MHA has recommended the immediate suspension of the FMR," Shah wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The announcement came two days after Amit Shah said India would fence the entire 1,643-km border with Myanmar and build a patrolling track next to the barrier.

What is the Free Movement Regime?

The FMR is a mutually agreed arrangement between India and Myanmar that allows tribes living along the border to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa.

Under the FMR, every member of the hill tribes, who is either a citizen of India or a citizen of Myanmar and who is a resident of any area within 16 km on either side of the border, can cross over on production of a border pass with one-year validity and can stay up to two weeks.

The FMR was implemented in 2018 as part of the Narendra Modi government's Act East policy when diplomatic relations between India and Myanmar were on the upswing. In fact, the FMR was to be put in place in 2017 itself but was deferred due to the Rohingya refugee crisis that erupted that August.