Amit Shah announces Smart Border project to seal Pakistan, Bangladesh frontiers

📌 Summary:

• Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Ministry of Home Affairs will soon roll out a Smart Border project to make frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh "impenetrable" and eliminate illegal infiltration

• The project will integrate drones, radars, modern cameras and other advanced surveillance technologies to create an impregnable border-security grid within the next year, supplementing traditional methods

• Shah flagged contemporary threats — illegal infiltration, narcotics, cattle smuggling, counterfeit currency and increasing use of drones to smuggle weapons and contraband — and said the government aims not only to stop infiltration but to identify and expel every infiltrator

• He called for deeper coordination among State Police, Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), the Narcotics Control Bureau, intelligence agencies and district administrations, framing border security as a "broader territorial responsibility"

• On the Vibrant Villages programme, Shah said the BSF's jurisdiction has been extended from 15 km to 50 km, and land-allocation decisions in West Bengal have been finalised

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 Internal Security — border management, technology-driven surveillance, infiltration and demographic-change concerns, and inter-agency coordination.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• The Border Security Force (BSF) guards India's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh; its operational jurisdiction was extended to 50 km in some states

• The Vibrant Villages Programme aims at the development of border villages

• CAPFs include the BSF, CRPF, ITBP, SSB and CISF

🔑 Key Term: Smart Border / integrated border management — use of layered surveillance technology (drones, radars, sensors, cameras) plus inter-agency coordination to detect and prevent unauthorised cross-border movement.