Gold smuggling on rise along India-Myanmar border: Report
Imphal, Oct 22: High tariff duties coupled with an increasing gap in gold prices between India and Myanmar has led to an upsurge in smuggling of the yellow metal across the international border, a report compiled by anti-smuggling unit of Imphal customs division has said.
Manipur shares a 398-km-long porous international border with the neighbouring country.
An official of the customs division feels facilitating "free movement" of citizens for a stipulated period from Manipur's border town of Moreh to adjacent Namphalong market in Myanmar has made the conflict-ridden state "more prone to illicit trafficking of contraband gold".
India and Myanmar border have a Free Movement Regime (FMR) which allows people living along the border to travel 16km across the boundary without visa restrictions.
"This unhindered movement across the border and lure for easy money have made Manipur a soft target for smugglers," the official added.
Last year, the anti-smuggling unit report stated, a whopping recovery of 137.4 kg gold, worth around Rs 40 crore, was made in Manipur alone.
The recovery from the entire northeast region amounted to 267.2 kg of gold, worth Rs 84.12 crores. In 2016, the customs division had seized 16.15 kg gold, valued at Rs 10 crore.
"The report suggests that Manipur accounts for 45 per cent of the total contraband gold recovered from the region last year. The seized gold often finds its way to the state and other parts of the country as it has no markings to indicate the place of origin," the customs official said.
As of September this year, 42 cases have been registered and contraband gold worth Rs 12 crore recovered, RK Darendrajit, Assistant Commissioner, Imphal Customs Division, told PTI.
In November, last year, an individual was apprehended from Lokchao area in Tengnoupal district with 26.6 kg gold.
"Unlike other security agencies which make contraband gold recoveries through random frisking, we rely on intelligence inputs to make arrests and recoveries," Darendrajit stated.
Pointing out that "those arrested in the border area mostly act as carriers for a commission of around Rs 2000", he said it was hard to trace the kingpins as the highly-organized rackets operate very cautiously.
The "carriers", in order to deceive the security agencies, often conceal gold bars in their body parts to avoid detection on the Imphal-Moreh National Highway, another official, who did not wish to be named, told PTI.
"In August this year, two men were apprehended with 12 gold biscuits worth Rs 62 lakh inside their rectum," he said.
Interestingly, some of them even paint the valuable yellow metal in silver to hoodwink the customs division sleuths, he said.
Nonetheless, the consignments bound for mainland India, including metropolitan cities of Delhi and Kolkata, reach destinations as the demand for gold never wanes, the official added.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
_vb_22.jpeg)
