India and Bangladesh on Saturday signed a comprehensive border management agreement as Home Minister P Chidambaram held crucial talks with his counterpart Sahara Khatun ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit in Dhaka in September.

“We have just signed the agreement — Border Management Coordination Plan for a comprehensive and joint management of all frontier issues,” Sahara told a joint news briefing with Chidambaram after their nearly two-and-half-hour talks at Bangladesh secretariat in Dhaka.

The two ministers witnessed the signing of the agreement between Border Guard Bangladesh’s Director General Major General Anwar Hossain and his Indian counterpart of Border Security Force (BSF) Raman Srivastava.

Chidambaram said the deal was expected to resolve all outstanding frontier issues including combating cross-border crimes.

“The agreement will enhance quality of border management as well as ensure (cross-border) security.”

India and Bangladesh share 4,096 Km border of which 6.1 kilometres is still un-demarcated.

Officials in Dhaka familiar with the process said the deal intended to enforce joint frontier vigils from certain border points against other cross-border crimes like human trafficking and weapons and drug smuggling.

The two countries had last week concluded a joint headcount in 162 enclaves on both sides of their borders. Of this, 111 are Indian territories inside Bangladesh.

The enclaves, or areas locked by territories belonging to the other side, have been an un-resolved border issue between the two countries since the partition of the subcontinent, causing untold difficulties to the people there in matters of connectivity, power and education.