India is fast-tracking construction of a 1,643-kilometre fence along its border with Myanmar, with roughly 401 kilometres completed so far, concentrated in the vulnerable stretches through Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland. In Manipur’s border town of Moreh, 9.2 kilometres of fencing have been completed.

The Cabinet Committee on Security gave in-principle approval for the fencing and associated road construction in September 2024, with an estimated ten-year cost of ₹31,000 crore; the Border Roads Organisation is overseeing the work. Between January and February 2026, the Army’s Red Shield Division carried out de-mining operations along the border, recovering improvised explosive devices and unexploded ordnance ahead of construction crews.

The project’s stated aim is to curb cross-border insurgent movement, arms and drug smuggling, and unregulated migration, including concerns about Rohingya transit through the region. It sits alongside — and in some places has complicated — India’s decades-old Free Movement Regime with Myanmar, which had allowed border communities to cross without visas within a limited zone.

Progress has been uneven given the terrain and the security situation on the Myanmar side of the border, where the civil war has periodically disrupted construction schedules and access for survey and building crews.

Sentinel NE Desk will track fencing progress and any changes to the Free Movement Regime as the project continues.