Dhaka: India and Bangladesh on Saturday ratified the Land Boundary Agreement in Dhaka as India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina presided over the ceremony of exchange of instruments of ratification of the land swap.

In a twitter message Modi said, ‘History is made as the Instruments of Ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement are exchanged.’  

Bangladesh and India sealed an agreement simplifying their 4,000-km (2,500-mile) border at the weekend, over four decades after the neighbours first tried to untangle complex territorial rights set down in 1713.

The agreement was finalised during a two-day state visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi beginning on Saturday.

In 1974, the then leaders of the two countries - Indira Gandhi of India and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh - agreed to swap almost 200 enclaves of land located in one country but officially belonging to the other.   

Established by a treaty between two former princely states, the 106 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 92 Bangladeshi enclaves in India are islands of foreign territory inside each country, most of them close to the official border.

Their inhabitants - about 37,330 in Indian enclaves and 14,200 in Bangladeshi enclaves - are deprived of public services because their governments have no access to them.

Under the agreement, each country will take over most of the enclaves on its territory and inhabitants will have the right to stay where they are or move to the other side of the border.