Indo-Bhutan border along Assam to be laser-mapped

Girja Shankar Kaura

Tribune News Service

Guwahati, September 9

The 267-km stretch of the Indo-Bhutan border along Assam would undergo a laser-based aerial mapping which could help the security agencies to pinpoint hideouts of the militants through remote sensing.

Recently, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has approved the laser-based aerial mapping of the Indo-Bhutan border along Assam. The aerial mapping would be done by the Assam Home Department and funded by the Border Management Department of the MHA.

The difficult Indo-Bhutan terrain has become a major hideout for insurgents, especially members of the banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit). Security intelligence says top leaders of the group are believed to be hiding somewhere along the Indo-Bhutan border.

The survey known as Lidar (light detection and ranging) would involve mapping experts who would use light in the form of pulsed laser to measure ranges of variables from the ground and detect surface characteristics.

Sources said the idea behind opting for the survey was to penetrate through the uninhabited thick forest and uneven terrain so as to enable linkage between the border guarding forces and prevent crime along the border, which is manned by the Sashastra Seema Bal.

While initially the mapping would be done along the Assam border, the long term plan of the MHA involves the laser-based aerial mapping of the entire 699-km Indo-Bhutan border which also passes along Arunachal Pradesh (217 km), West Bengal (183 km) and Sikkim (32 km). Incidentally, the laser-based aerial survey has proved to be successful in some of the countries and the Centre wants to carry out the experiment here as well in a bid to entrap the militants.