The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is India’s leading border guard to protect the border with the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is one of India’s five Central Armed Police Forces, established on 24th October, 1962, under the CRPF Act enacted after the Sino-Indian War of the year 1962.
Highlights
In September 1996, the Parliament of India enacted the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Act in 1992, which provided the ITBP’s Regulations and Constitution so as to ensure the security of the Indian border and related matters. The ITBP appointed as the first chief inspector was Balbir Singh, a police officer who previously belonged to intelligence agencies. Starting with four battalions, ITBP has expanded to 60 battalion units with 15 sectors and 05 borders as of 2018 and has 89,432 sanctions since the 1978 restructuring.
ITBP is trained in civil medical camps, biology, nuclear and chemical disasters and disaster management, ITBP staff are stationed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Western Sahara, Afghanistan, as well as other UN peace missions abroad. Two ITBP battalions have been assigned to the National Disaster Response Force.
Function of ITBP
ITBP is a multidimensional unit with five main functions which are
- Vigilance at the northern border,
- detection and prevention of border breaches,
- Promotion of local residents’ peace of mind.
- Control of illegal immigrants and cross-border smuggling.
- Provides security for sensitive systems and VIPs at risk.
- Restoration and maintenance of order in all areas in the event of a failure.
- To keep peace.
Deployment
The ITBP battalion is currently deployed on border guards from the Karakoram Pass in Ladakh to Dipla in Arnachal Pradesh, covering 3,488km of the Indian-Chinese border. Manned border posts are located up to 6,400 m high in the western, central and eastern parts of the border. ITBP is a mountain-trained unit, and most officers and men are professionally trained mountaineers and skiers. Under the dynamic and professional leadership of IPS’s Subhash Goswami, the unit is in an expansion plan to free the army from constant high-altitude deployments.
Training
ITBP’s main training center is located in Mussoorie in the state of Uttarakhand. The Training Academy was founded in the year 1976 and trains troop officers. Training programs for troop subordinates are conducted at the Central Training Universities Alwar and Banu (Haryana) Basic Training Universities. Special training programs in areas such as rock boating and explosives handling are also conducted here.
With the country’s evolving security scenario in mind, ITBP has established a Forest Warfare and Counter Insurgency school in Mahidanda, 6,000 feet above sea level, in the heart of the extremely harsh Himalayas. This School provides ITBP men and executives with anti-Naxalite operation training. Explosives handling, Jungle warfare, survival under adverse conditions, rock boating, guerrilla warfare and unarmed combat are some of the topics trained here. Due to the demand for realistic anti-Naxalite training, ITBP’s CIJW School was moved to Belagavi Karnataka.