The seventh meeting of the Joint Working Group (BWG) between Nepal and India on border dispute resolution has started in Delhi from Monday. The 13-member BWG meeting was held after 6 years.

Last week, a home secretary-level meeting of the two countries was held in Delhi. The meeting was also held in a gap of 9 years. 

The BWG meeting was led by Prakash Joshi, director general of surveying department on behalf of Nepal and Hitesh Kumar, head of surveying department on behalf of India. The meeting which started at Delhi's Sushma Swaraj Bhawan will end on Tuesday. According to sources, the review of the work done so far and the work to be done are being discussed in the meeting. An official who participated in the meeting said that the two parties are having amicable talks to resume the technical works that have been stopped at the border. Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Defense, Law, Land Reforms, DIG of the Armed Police Force and officials of the Embassy in Delhi are participating in the meeting of the group.

Both countries formed the BWG in 2014 to address the old disputes and future problems on the border between the two countries. Until 2019, the meeting of this mechanism was held regularly every year. However, due to the covid epidemic and border disputes, the meeting could not be held regularly. The discussions and agreements reached in the sixth meeting held in Dehradun in 2019 have been considered as the starting point of the seventh meeting this time.  This mechanism is also responsible for building, repairing and rehabilitating the

border posts. Similarly, it has been given the mandate to prepare a joint report of the encroachments in Dasgaja area and to prepare a process to keep Dasgaja clean, to conduct GPS survey of the border pillars, and to issue the SAPMA charter. It also prepares data on citizens' assets across borders. It is also assigned the task of preparing joint costs in relation to the land holdings of citizens of one country in another country and finding a way to solve such problems. "Survey Official Committee" and "Field Survey Team" have been formed to help this group and to implement the decisions taken by it. In remaining border issues like Susta and Kalapani, it provides necessary support to the foreign secretary-level mechanism. 

The 'Nepal-India Joint Technical Boundary Committee', formed on November 1, 1981, completed 97 percent of the 1,880 km long border line. The committee could not complete the demarcation of areas including Susta and Lipulek-Limpiyadhura-Kalapani. On 31 December 2007, the demarcation work was stopped. After the dissolution of the committee, BWG was formed in 2014 to complete the necessary technical work on the border. The agreement to form the group was signed in Kathmandu when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Nepal for the first time. 

The demarcation between the two countries has been completed except for the disputed areas of Susta and Kalapani. A Boundary Working Group was set up in 2014 to finalize technical work in areas where there is no demarcation dispute. Its mandate includes clearing the 'no man's land' from encroachment, establishing border markers, identifying the border area using the technology of border posts that have been lost due to landslides. There are 8 thousand 553 border posts separating Nepal-India international border. According to data from a few years ago, 2,716 border posts were found to have disappeared. The survey showed that about 1,600 boundary pillars are dilapidated and 2,900 pillars are in need of general repair. 60 percent of the work is still to be done. It is agreed that the Nepalese government will repair the odd-numbered column and the even-numbered column by the Indian side.  Although the Nepalese side has been making diplomatic efforts for the meeting of the