50 new borders outposts to come up along Sino-Indian frontier

The plan to establish more BOPs along the Sino-Indian border will allow troops of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police to undertake Short Range Patrols (SRP).
This will reduce the inter-BOP distance, which exceeds more than 50-kilometres, and the present Long Range Patrols (LRP) can be made effective by having more SRPs, official sources said.

Currently the ITBP, which guards the 3,500-km-long border, has more than 140 BOPs in the inhospitable terrain that are prone to frequent blizzards, avalanches, heavy snowfall and have temperatures as low as minus 20 to minus 40 degrees.
The posts are located at heights ranging from 9,000 to 18,500 feet while 60 per cent of them are not connected by roads.
Most of the BOPs are located on hills and almost 30 per cent are maintained by helicopters. Communication between patrol parties and the base locations and posts is often disrupted by bad weather.

Once the new posts come up, not only the patrols would be effective, they would be able to cover more areas qualitatively, the sources said.

Home Minister P Chidambaram while addressing ITBP men on their 48th raising day on Friday had said, "We are considering an ITBP restructuring plan. The plan includes measures to strengthen border posts".

The government has also decided to provide more than 100 satellite phones, all terrain vehicles and oxygen cylinders to ITBP troops on the border.
The troops deployed here will also have high-altitude clothing on par with army troops who are stationed at the Siachen glacier.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has also sanctioned computers, recovery vehicles, fibre-reinforced polymer huts, high-power snow cutters, deep-search mine metal detectors, hand grenade simulators and other surveillance devices for the ITBP troops.

ITBP Director-General Vikram Srivastava had said the troops will also be provided with modern BOPs which will be equipped with solar power generating apparatus.
"Every BOP will be provided with two 620 litres capacity oxygen cylinders. A number of such initiatives have been taken for the benefit of our troops posted at these difficult areas," Srivastava said.