India
oi-Deepika S
New Delhi, Mar 03: The government has sanctioned a dozen fresh battalions of the Sashastra Seema Bal or SSB, comprising over 13,000 personnel for the force that guards the Nepal and Bhutan borders, to “fortify” defences along these fronts including the tri-junction area in Sikkim that adjoins Bhutan and Tibet, news agency PTI reported quoting officials said.
Though the Union Home Ministry has denied the creation of a new field frontier for the border force, it has allowed the SSB to create one out of three new sector – responsible for the operations of about 5-6 battalions – and it is expected to come up in the Delhi-NCR region.
The Sashastra Seema Bal, with an estimated strength of about 90,000 personnel, is the designated force to guard the 1,751-km open Indian front with Nepal and the 699 km one with Bhutan.
SSB Director General Kumar Rajesh Chandra told PTI that…