Smart fences to thwart border infiltration

Aimed to stop infiltration of terrorists, Indian government has completed two pilot projects of smart fencing on Tuesday, covering about 71 kilometres on Indo-Pakistan and Indo-Bangladesh borders. 

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the project border electronically dominated QRT interception technique under Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) on Indo- Bangladesh border in Dhubri district of Assam. 

With the government completing 10 kilometres along Indo-Pakistan and 61 kilometres along Indo-Bangladesh borders areas, the stage is now set for taking up stage-II and stage-III of the project covering about 1955 kilometres of the border which cannot be physically fenced.  

The Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) project will vastly improve the capability of Border Security Force in detecting and controlling the cross border crimes like illegal infiltration, smuggling of contraband, human trafficking and cross border terror.

Singh said in September, 2018, two pilot projects of “smart” border fencing built under the CIBMS programme in Jammu were operationalised. He added that over a period of time the complete border will be covered.

At Dhubri, where border electronically dominated QRT interception technique project has been implemented along riverine border, it was not feasible to construct border fencing. The 61 kilometres of border area in Dhubri where Brahmaputra river enters into Bangladesh consists of vast char lands and innumerable river channels thus making border guarding in this area a challenging task especially during rainy season.

To address these problems, MHA has decided to use technological solutions to enhance capabilities of manpower of BSF deployed on the ground. As part of CIBMS, these two projects were undertaken.  Implementation of this project will help in integration of manpower, sensors, networks, intelligence and command and control solutions to improve situational awareness at different levels of hierarchy..

2 Projects Done

• Stage-I  Pilot projects in Jammu and Assam has been completed.
• Stage-II Rollout of 153 kms in 4 patches along Indo-Pakistan & Indo-Bangladesh Border.
• Stage-III  Rollout of 1,802 kms in 67 patches along Indo-Pakistan & Indo-Bangladesh border.