[Answered]What are the issues and challenge in a comprehensive border management system? Suggest some measures for effective border management in India.

India has 14,818 km of land borders and a coastline of 7,516.6 km. All states, except Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Delhi and Haryana, have an international border or a coastline. India has three types of land border: international borderline (IBL), line of control (LoC) and line of actual control (LoAC).

Issues in a comprehensive border management system:

• The problems related to border security include unsettled maritime boundaries, lack of fully demarcated land borders, and borders based on artificial boundaries rather than natural ones.
• Border-guarding forces are often short on resources and ill-equipped for modern border management and mastery.
• Intelligence gathering and coordination are imperfect.
• Multiple security agencies: While the army is deployed along the LoC and AGPL, the Border Security Force (BSF)looks after the international border with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Challenges:

• Terrainsare diverse and difficult.  Connectivity with the hinterland and across to other countries is poor.
• Porosity of the border has facilitated various illegal activities such as smuggling, drugs and arms trafficking, and infiltration.
• Heroin and fake Indian currency are the two predominant items smuggled along India-Pak border.
• The China border sees fairly regular armed intrusionsg. Doklam crisis.

Measures:

• The government should derive implementable ideas from systems of border management of other large countries.
• Smart border management by enabling effective communication and coordination among all security agencies to arrive at a common entity picture, neutralising threats linked to terrorism and organised crime, checking illegal migration etc.
• At the local level, creating sustainable employment opportunities in border states by promoting agriculture and horticulture and creating border tourism opportunities.
• Tighter entry-exit controls are needed to contain illegal migration and trafficking.
• The encouragement of private investment will not only save the government resources but also allow the best practices, innovation and knowledge to be inherited for designing of border infrastructure.
• Community policing can increase the vigilance of citizens across different layers in the society.

To achieve stable and secure borders in India, robust technologies for border control and surveillance are required in order to combat real and alleged dangers to the country.