Govt plans to end Free Movement Regime along international border with Myanmar

“The idea is to not only to stop the misuse of the FMR, which is used by insurgent groups to carry out attacks on the Indian side and flee towards Myanmar, but also put a brake on the influx of illegal immigrants, drugs and gold smuggling,” the source said.

Earlier in September 2023, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh had urged the Centre to permanently wind up the FMR along the Indo-Myanmar border to curb “illegal immigration”. He had also said the state was working towards a National Register of Citizens, and fencing of the border with Myanmar. Manipur shares around 390 km of porous border with Myanmar, of which only about 10 km is fenced.

The border between India and Myanmar runs for 1,643 km in the four states of Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh. The FMR is a mutually agreed arrangement between the two countries 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 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 at a time 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.