Border Police To Get 9,400 Personnel, Operational Base For LAC Deployment

New Delhi: 

The government today sanctioned hiring of 9,400 fresh troops for raising seven new border battalions apart from a new operational base for the India-China LAC guarding force Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

The proposal was cleared during the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Information and Broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur told reporters during a post cabinet press briefing.

The about 90,000 personnel strong ITBP was raised in the aftermath of the 1962 Chinese aggression and it is tasked with guarding the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) on India’s eastern flank. 

The force is working along with the Army at this front even as the militaries of India and China are engaged in a standoff at Ladakh from 2020.

According to the government sanction, the fresh manpower will be utilised for manning 47 new border posts and a dozen ‘staging camps’ or troops bases to be created along this frontier, largely in Arunachal Pradesh. These bases were sanctioned in 2020.

In order to ensure effective guarding of the LAC, these new bases were sanctioned and now seven battalions and a new sector headquarter comprising about 9,400 personnel have been sanctioned, a senior officer said.