India and Bangladesh will hold their bi-annual DG-level border talks in Dhaka next month to discuss problems such as reducing cross-border crimes and improving coordination between their security forces and agencies, official sources said on Thursday.

A delegation led by Border Security Force (BSF) Director General Nitin Agrawal is scheduled to travel to Bangladesh for the meeting, which will take place between March 5 and 9, according to PTI sources.

This would be the 54th round of negotiations between the BSF and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).

The meetings will take place at the BGB headquarters in Dhaka’s Pilkhana.

BGB DG Maj Gen Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui will lead the Bangladesh delegation. The talks will be attended by officials from the two countries’ home and foreign affairs ministries, as well as anti-narcotics and other agencies, according to the sources.

Both sides are expected to deliberate on a number of border management issues, including taking steps to stop incidents of assault and attacks on BSF personnel and civilians by Bangladeshi criminals, jointly checking crimes like smuggling of goods and fake Indian currency along this front, improving the coordinated border management plan (CBMP), and checking illegal construction activities along the border fence, among other things, a senior Union home ministry official said.

The BSF protects India’s 4,096-kilometer border with Bangladesh on the country’s eastern side.

Border talks at the DG level were held annually between 1975 and 1992, but were reduced to biannual meetings in 1993, with each side alternately flying to the national capitals of New Delhi and Dhaka.

The final talks were conducted in Delhi in June 2023.

The officer stated that relations between the two countries and their troops are excellent, and that this meeting is intended to further those connections.

According to official figures, the BSF detained more than 3,342 Bangladeshi nationals near the border in 2023, the highest amount in the previous six years.

According to the data, 77 BSF personnel were injured in attacks by Bangladeshi and Indian miscreants last year, up from 43 and 64 in 2022 and 2021, respectively.