Dhaka:
India and Bangladesh began signing border maps in Dhaka on Saturday, officially recognising their 4,156-km international boundary and ending a decades-old lingering discord over the issue.
The maps were signed at the Department of Land Records and Surveys (DLRS), ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Bangladesh on September 6-7.
Tariq Ahmad Karim, Bangladesh's High Commissioner to New Delhi, and Rajeet Mitter, India's High Commissioner to Dhaka, signed some of the 1,149 maps.
The border demarcation team chief, Joint Home Secretary (political) Kamal Uddin Ahmed said Bangladesh had made half of the maps while the rest were made by India.
"The maps were finalised after scrutiny by representatives of the two countries," bdnews24.com quoted him as saying.
Ahmed said the high commissioners of the two countries will sign eight copies of each map.
Though the current border is recognised by both countries, it will get legal backing once the maps are signed.
However, a 6.5-km-long stretch between the two countries is yet to be demarcated, the report said.
Ahmed said the representatives of the two countries will finalise the maps for this part soon.
The demarcation of the boundary between India and Bangladesh (then east Pakistan) began in 1947. A preliminary draft on the demarcation was signed in 1956. The process was stalled later.
When Bangladesh was liberated in 1971, Indira Gandhi and Bangladesh's then prime minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, signed an agreement in 1974 for border demarcation. But the process was stopped.
The issue was highlighted again during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India last year. Following this, DLRS made 628 maps covering 2,262 km of the Bangladesh-Paschimbanga border, 269 maps for the 874 km Bangladesh-Tripura border, 93 maps for the 264-km Bangladesh-Assam border and 139 maps for the 436-km Bangladesh-Meghalaya border.
A survey of Bangladesh made 20 maps for the 320-km Bangladesh-Mizoram border, the surveyor general of the organisation Brigadier Gen Mohammad Mominul Haque said.
Ahmed said the dispute over enclaves would be settled during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka. Singh will sign a deal with his Bangladeshi counterpart to swap the enclaves, he said.
There are 111 Indian enclaves with 37,000 people in Bangladesh, while 51 enclaves with 14,000 people lie in West Bengal.