47 new outposts, weapons upgrade, V-SAT systems: ITBP gets more teeth amid LAC row
Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), deployed along with the Army on Indo-China border, has got a weapons upgrade, V-SAT systems for better border communication, better vehicles, apart from bullet resistant jackets and helmets for its personnel, as part of its modernisation, ITBP Director General S S Deswal said on Saturday on the occasion of its Raising Day.
Minister of state G Kishan Reddy, in his address at the Raising Day event, added that the home ministry had, under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and leadership of home minister Amit Shah, taken a slew of initiatives to empower the ITBP.
This included grant of approval to ITBP to establish 47 border outposts. This year alone, he said, 28 types of new vehicles had been provided to the force. He added that ITBP personnel in high-altitude areas had been given specialised clothing and mountaineering equipment.
“A budget of Rs 7,223 crore has been allocated for the ITBP and more than Rs 15 crore has been sanctioned for management,” he said while praising the valour shown by ITBP men during the standoff with Chinese troops in Ladakh. In his message to ITBP on its Raising Day, home minister Amit Shah tweeted: “The valour and courage of our ITBP personnel cannot be put in words. Their commitment to safeguard our motherland at world’s most difficult terrains is truly remarkable”.
Speaking earlier, Deswal said ITBP had sent a proposal regarding phase 2 of Indo-China border roads programme to the home ministry. Also, a high-level empowered committee was looking at another proposal for critical infrastructure — 18 foot tracks in Arunachal Pradesh — and the DG hoped construction of the same would start soon.
Source: Times of India
