The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by our adversaries across the borders to ferry arms/ammunitions, drugs, etc., is a serious threat to the internal security. Comment on the measures being taken to tackle this threat.
Subtopic: Internal Security · cross-border drones and counter-UAV measures
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Detailed model answer
181 words · target 150 words · 9 min
The threat
Pakistan-based handlers increasingly use small, low-flying UAVs across the Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir borders to drop weapons, RDX, fake currency and heroin. Being cheap, hard to detect on radar and deniable, they lower the cost and risk of trans-border trafficking and terror logistics, and the BSF reports a sharp year-on-year rise in sightings.
Measures being taken
- Regulation: the Drone Rules, 2021 and the Digital Sky platform with red/yellow/green zones and mandatory registration.
- Counter-drone technology: DRDO’s D-4 (Drone Detect, Deter, Destroy) system, jammers, and anti-drone units and guns deployed by the BSF along the western border.
- National Counter Rogue Drone Guidelines and dedicated anti-drone deployment at vital installations and airports.
- Legal deterrence under the UAPA and the NDPS Act, plus better intelligence coordination between the BSF, state police and central agencies.
Comment
Detection remains patchy over long, undulating borders, and swarms and fibre-optic-guided drones can outpace jammers. A layered grid — sensors and radars, soft-kill jamming and hard-kill lasers, backed by indigenous R&D under the anti-drone ecosystem and vigilant border-village intelligence — is essential to blunt this low-cost, high-impact threat.
What an examiner expects to see
- Characterise the threat: cheap, low-radar-signature, deniable UAVs ferrying arms, RDX, FICN and narcotics across Punjab and J&K.
- Note the scale: BSF records a steep rise in drone sightings and multiple interceptions/shoot-downs.
- Regulatory response: Drone Rules 2021 and Digital Sky airspace zoning with registration.
- Technology: DRDO's D-4 anti-drone system (detect-deter-destroy), jammers and anti-drone guns deployed by BSF.
- Institutional and legal measures: National Counter Rogue Drone Guidelines, UAPA and NDPS action, intelligence coordination.
- Identify gaps: detection over long borders, swarm attacks and fibre-optic-controlled drones immune to jamming.
- Way forward: a layered soft-kill plus hard-kill counter-UAS grid with indigenous R&D and local intelligence.
Concrete cases, schemes and judgments
- DRDO's D-4 (Drone Detect, Deter, Destroy) counter-UAS system
- Drone Rules, 2021 and the Digital Sky platform with airspace zoning
- BSF anti-drone deployment and drone shoot-downs along the Punjab border
- Use of UAVs to smuggle heroin, weapons and fake currency across the J&K/Punjab frontier