SSB creates 72 new border posts to enhance security along Nepal, Bhutan borders

The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), which guards the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan border, has operationalised a total of 72 posts during this year to strengthen its defences to guard the two open Indian borders, a top official said on Tuesday.

The paramilitary force, as part of the boosting of security infrastructure and enhancing manpower along the borders, has created 18 such posts in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, where a few of its locations are just next to the Doklam plateau where Indian and Chinese forces had a 73 day-long military standoff in the summer of 2016.

Asked if the new Border out Posts (BoPs) were being created in the aftermath of the Doklam incident, the SSB Director General (DG) S S Deswal said securing the India-China border was not its mandate and the new posts were established to guard the two open Indian borders with Nepal and Bhutan on the eastern flank of the country.

Wherever Indian borders with Nepal and Bhutan run, the SSB is creating infrastructure and is deploying manpower, Deswal said while interacting with reporters on the occasion of the 55th raising day of the force here.

The force chief said conditions in the border posts were "improving at a very fast pace" when he was asked about the comments of a recent parliamentary panel report that said the border posts of forces like SSB lacked basic amenities like clean drinking water and proper electricity.

"I have not seen the parliamentary committee report and it has not come to us," he added.

The DG stressed that construction of roads to connect the border posts is "top priority" of all the government organisations involved in this task.

"We have provided generators at all BoPs wherever there is no direct electricity connection. This situation varies from state-to-state. For drinking water, we have installed RO (reverse osmosis) plants at all BoPs," he said.

The DG was also asked reasons as to why a number of officers and jawans were leaving the paramilitary forces or Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) over the last few years.

He said the personnel do so in order to avail better job opportunities and avenues.

"Every officer and jawan has right to improve their career. The personnel we recruit are highly educated and they get better opportunities and avenues. There are better careers outside every organisation. In my force of 99,000 personnel, 500 personnel leaving in an year is not even 0.5 per cent of the total manpower," he said.

Deswal said the force, raised in the aftermath of the 1962 Chinese aggression, was mulling to use 'laser fence' technology to plug loopholes along the two borders of Nepal and Bhutan that it guards.

A senior official later said the SSB was undertaking a pilot project of these technologies at two locations and these gadgets will be used at very small and select border pockets.