BSF Battalion Hqrs coming up in Nalkonda

From The Indian Express

Vikram Sharma

First Published : 30 Jul 2010 04:19:14 AM IST

Last Updated : 30 Jul 2010 10:29:23 AM IST

HYDERABAD: After the elite National Security Guards (NSG) and the National Investigating Agency (NIA), it is now the turn of the Border Security Force (BSF)to come to Andhra Pradesh.

The State Government has allotted a little over 84 acres in Gollaguda village, Nalgonda district for the BSF to set up its battalion headquarters.

Top sources told Express that the BSF, the largest of its kind in the world, had requested the State Government to allot land a few years ago. The request was made by AP cadre IPS officer M L Kumawat (now retired) who was the then Director General of the BSF. The proposed battalion headquarters will also be the first such BSF facility in South India.

“It will have proper accommodation and training facilities for BSF jawans.

Recruitments will also be made from here,” the sources said. A DIG rank officer is likely to head the battalion headquarters.

Importantly, BSF jawans, who belong to south India but deployed along the borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, will have better access to their families. “The BSF will acquire the land shortly and construction of buildings will commence soon. Later, the jawans will be trained in search and rescue operations and their services would be used during natural disasters. They might also be used to tackle major law and order problems within Andhra Pradesh,” sources said.

For the state, the battalion headquarters will be advantageous as the forces will be just a call away in times of emergency.

Once established, the BSF will have its own helicopter to ferry its jawans.Though the BSF, with its headquarters in New Delhi, has no establishment of its own in south India, a significant number of men from this part of the country are guarding the borders, particularly the Indo- Bangladesh border and the Indo-Pak border (in Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Rajasthan). Of late, they are being deployed to tackle law and order situations as well. Most notably, BSF jawans were called in at the height of the Telangana agitation in December last. While the BSF has begun the process of acquiring the land, the NIA has decided to open its office at Gachibowli in Cyberabad, sources said.