BSF adds drone warfare to its training syllabus, commissions innovation centre

The Border Security Force (BSF) has updated its training curriculum and added drone warfare as a mandatory subject for its troops and officers, apart from commissioning an innovation centre to develop indigenous tools for the new-age warfare post-Operation Sindoor.

The premier Officers' Training Academy of the about 2.70 lakh-strong force based in this Madhya Pradesh town near Gwalior has also created a drone technology lab for the students of Rustamji Institute of Technology (RJIT), the only higher education institute run by a paramilitary force under the Union Home Ministry.

The BSF guards India's over 6,000-km-long front with Pakistan and Bangladesh, apart from operating the home ministry's air wing for special missions. During Operation Sindoor, the force countered drone attacks, loitering munitions and launched effective firepower against Pakistani positions along the border.

Eighteen BSF personnel, including two posthumously, were awarded gallantry medals for displaying courage during Operation Sindoor, launched by India in May following the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack that claimed 26 lives.

"We have recently revised the training curriculum for the jawans and officers, and drone technology has now been included as a mandatory subject.

"New standard operating procedures (SOPs) are being formalised and a drone school was recently inaugurated as part of this initiative to make the force self-reliant with indigenously developed technology to combat the changing method of warfare across the globe," said Director of the BSF Academy Shamsher Singh.

Singh, an Additional Director General (ADG) rank IPS officer, said the force had brought its various arms and engineering workshops, centres, RJIT and allied institutions on one platform. The BSF has also signed MoUs with various IITs and government research organisations to prepare a road map for the tactical employment of drone technology in the border force.

The BSF Academy has also created a 'police technology innovation centre' with the participation of its own expert officers, industries, startups, academicians and innovators to find solutions to emerging challenges in the internal security domain, including drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

"This centre is looking at 48 identified problems. Drones, artificial intelligence, machine learning, surveillance and smart mobility are some of the areas that this indigenous platform is working on," a second officer said.

A special area that the B.Tech students of RJIT are working on in their lab is improving and bringing about improvisations so that drones can be better used by the BSF for surveillance, defence and tactical combat, said the officer, who did not wish to be named.

The drone school has just trained the first batch of about 45 personnel in drone commando and drone warriors courses and they are back at the border.

The second batch is undergoing training. The aim is to train around 500 personnel annually. The number will be gradually increased, an instructor at the centre said.

He said the drone commando course is meant for the jawans and junior-rank officials while the drone warriors capsule is for the officers, who will plan and supervise such operations during peace and war.

BSF troops are being trained in the theory and practicals of drone flying, anti-drone operations and tactical deployment of technology.

Funds worth about Rs 20 crore have been sanctioned to procure gadgets, equipment and simulators for the new school, officials said.

The force has prepared the tutorials after studying the recent usage of unmanned aerial platforms in combat across the world, like the Ukraine-Russia war, apart from the ones used by countries like the US, China, Turkiye and Pakistan.

Coordination with the drone assets of the defence forces and that of the BSF during active war scenarios is also a plan in the works, the second officer quoted above said.