BSF to undergo tech upgradation, to get 436 drones and new anti-drone systems

In the past one year, Pakistani deep state is using Chinese commercial drones to transport assault rifles, pistols and grenades to the Khalistani terrorists in Punjab as well as jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir.

Updated on: Aug 23, 2020, 14:39:58 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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With Rakesh Asthana taking over as full-time Director General of the Border Security Force (BSF), technological upgradation of the force has started with approval for 436 small and micro drones for border surveillance and anti-drone system being currently tested on India-Pakistan border to shoot down any drone carrying weapon-load for terrorists in Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir.

Under the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management plan, all 1,923 border outposts manned by BSF on Pakistan and Bangladesh border will be equipped with sensors and CCTVs.

Under the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management (CIBM) plan, all 1923 border outposts manned by BSF on Pakistan and Bangladesh border will be equipped with sensors, CCTV and drone feeds from the sector headquarters with as many as 1,500 posts (as rest are in remote locations) being able to fly drone to recce the border and use anti-drone system to shoot any weapon pay-load transportation from across.

According to senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials, while the cost of small and micro drone will come around Rs 88 crore, the BSF with the help of security agencies is currently testing an indigenous anti-drone system on the sensitive Punjab border with Pakistan. In the past one year, Pakistani deep state is using Chinese commercial drones to transport assault rifles, pistols and grenades to the Khalistani terrorists in Punjab as well as jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir.

By killing five Pakistani intruders carrying assault rifles and Afghan heroin on Friday morning, the new DG has made his intentions clear that the BSF will be pro-active on both the borders and will not allow any anti-India activity. It is understood that the BSF chief personally spoke to the company commander who carried out the successful operation in Taran Taran sector.

As Rakesh Asthana also holds the charge of DG, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the G Branch or the intelligence branch of the BSF is also being revived so that Afghan drugs do not make their way across the Pakistan border or the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. In this context, a common strategy will be adopted between the BSF and NCB to bring big cross border drug kingpins to book as the narcotic trade funds the cross border weapons smuggling and terrorism both in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. In the past decade, India has not only become the hub of drug transhipment but also a major consumer of narcotics like heroin and cocaine from Afghanistan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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