ITBP launches matrimonial portal for personnel

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Easing the ‘uphill task’

The portal aims to help personnel of the mountain warfare-trained force as they are deployed in remote and far-flung areas and it becomes an ‘uphill task’ for them and their families to find a suitable match. The force has about 25,000 unmarried men and 1,000 women. There have been 150 registrations on the portal till now.

New Delhi, December 15 (PTI)

In a first for a paramilitary, border guarding force ITBP has developed a matrimonial portal for its unmarried, widowed and separated personnel to help them find a suitable “soulmate” within their service. The mountain warfare-trained force, primarily tasked to guard the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, has about 25,000 unmarried men and 1,000 women in its various ranks at present, officials told PTI.

A number of these personnel are posted and deployed in remote border locations and far-flung areas and it becomes an “uphill task” for them and their families to find a suitable match, a senior Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) official said. The force, as per data accessed, has about 333 force couples (both husband and wife in the ITBP) and a number of personnel prefer a spouse from within the organisation as government rules allow preferential posting to a couple at the same location, the official said. Considering the hard duties that the force renders along the mountainous border, such a step of serving together brings the much required relief for service couples, they said. Keeping these issues in mind, ITBP Director General SS Deswal recently asked the information technology (IT) wing of the force to develop a matrimonial portal that will work to alleviate the problem of separated posting among working couples. A link for the unique portal has been launched on December 9 on the official website of the force. “There have been 150 registrations on the portal till now. We sincerely hope that more interested eligible personnel will register and find the new online service useful,” he said. Vital service details of a personnel like rank, date of joining the force, home town location, current posting and photograph will be visible on the site. — PTI