Board Security at North Eastern Indian boards set to improve

Sashastra Seema Bal

Siliguri, Feb 23: The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), which guards India’s borders with Nepal and Bhutan, will complete a major manpower augmentation by 2018 and boost its intelligence setup to keep these areas under closer vigil. The SSB currently has 67 battalions and will soon have 73.

SSB’s 10 battalions are deployed at 147 Border Outposts (BOPs). The force’s Siliguri Frontier guards 215 km out of the 699 km long Indo-Bhutan border and 315 km out of the 1751 km long Indo-Nepal border. This means the average distance between two BOPs is 3.6 km.

“There are few gap areas. To plug them up, we expect a major manpower augmentation to be completed by 2018. We are also boosting up our intelligence strength to a much higher level,” said S. Bandopadhyay, IG, SSB, Siliguri Frontier.

“These are open and porous borders. People across these borders have good relations. But, lot of unwanted activities are also happening there,” said Bandopadhyay.

Last year, the SSB Siliguri Frontier seized several consignments of narcotics, animal body parts, live rare species of animals and fire arms, which were worth Rs 115 crore. It has also arrested several individuals involved in illegal activities such as human trafficking, illegal immigration and militancy.

“This is the visible part only. But, huge volumes of these illegal activities might have remained invisible despite SSB’s strong vigil,” many security officials admitted.

Source: SiliguriTimes