India inducting 9,000 troops into Indo-Tibetan Border Police 

Cabinet approval to entail raising seven new battalions and a new sector headquarters

 India is going to induct 9,000 troops into the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) – a move that will entail raising seven new battalions and a new sector headquarters, local media reported.

Citing a home ministry official, the report said: “This has been a long-pending proposal from the ITBP and has been there since 2013-14. 

“Initially it was envisaged to raise 12 new battalions but has now been decreased to seven battalions. 

“This has been in conjunction with the decision to increase the number of border outposts and staging camps along the LAC."

The new battalions, approved in a cabinet meeting and to come up by 2025/26, will cover 47 new border outposts and 12 staging camps of the ITBP, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told a news conference.

Indian and Chinese troops had minor border scuffles in December in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh, also claimed by Beijing.

The clashes were the first since troops were involved in hand-to-hand combat in the Galwan valley of Ladakh, abutting the Chinese-held Tibetan plateau. That incident led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops.

Army chief Manoj Pandey has time and again underlined that the 'situation' on the Sino-Indian border remains ‘stable but unpredictable’.

The cabinet’s approval comes against the backdrop of clashes between Indian and Chinese forces in December last year in the Yangtze region of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, where several Indian troops were reported to have been injured. 

In a paper presented at the recent conference attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, it was pointed out that India had lost access to 26 of its 65 patrolling points on the LAC in Ladakh.

“Later on, China forces us to accept the fact that such areas have not seen the presence of Indian Security Forces (ISFs) or civilians since long, the Chinese were present in these areas. 

“This leads to a shift in the border under the control of ISFs towards the Indian side and a ‘buffer zone’ is created in all such pockets, which ultimately leads to loss of control over these areas by India. This tactic of the PLA to grab land inch-by-inch is known as ‘salami slicing’,” the paper said.

According to the paper, the PLA has taken advantage of the buffer areas in the de-escalation talks by placing the best of its cameras on the highest peaks and monitoring the movement of Indian forces.

It continues: “This peculiar situation can be seen at Blacktop, Helmet top mountains in Chushul, at Demchok, at Kakjung, at Gogra hills in Hot Springs and at Depsang plains near Chip Chap river. With the ‘salami slicing’ strategy they object to our movement even in the buffer zone, claiming it to be ‘their’ area of operation and then further ask us to move back to create more ‘buffer’ areas. 

“This situation has happened with Y nallah at Galwan, where we were forced to move back to Camp 01 without dominating the higher posts overseeing Y nallah; at Chushul, the BPM hut near the airfield has become the de facto LAC and Nilung nallah at Demchok has been restricted.”