Migration from border areas not good for security: Rajnath Singh

While he is the first Union Home Minister to visit Lapthal, his visit to Rimkhim was only the second by a Home Minister after L K Advani visited the border outpost in 1998.

Singh said that ITBP must ensure that it has good relations with the people in border areas. “Make border people your friends – win their trust, build confidence. I appreciate whatever is being done under the Border Area Development Programme (BADP), but it must be done every couple of months. I will ensure that funds under BADP are increased,” he said.

The minister said that BADP is being implemented in nine blocks of five border districts of Uttarakhand.

Sources in ITBP said that migration of people away from the border is an issue, and it is good that the Home Minister was seized of the matter. “People are migrating due to loss of livelihood and better opportunities in cities. This is not good for border security, as border people are our eyes and ears,” an ITBP officer said.

Singh also spoke to the local people and said their welfare was often brought up during talks with the PM. “PM Narendra Modi is always concerned about people in the borders. He says that those who live on the border should be specially taken care of,” Singh said.

Singh also expressed concern over high mobile phone tariff that ITBP personnel at outposts such as Rimkhim have to pay and said he would find a solution to the problem. “I know that mobile connectivity is an issue…. I have learnt that ITBP men at remote BoPs have to pay Rs 5 per minute to talk to their family ,” he said. “Earlier they had to pay Rs 1 – I will deal with this issue. If my jawan wants to talk to his family, he must do so at Rs 1 per minute.”

Singh also said his ministry is working on quickly completing pending work on border roads – of 27 roads approved, 10 are in Uttarakhand. Of these, he said four have been completed and two will be completed by the end of the year. He said the rest would be completed by 2019.

Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat, who accompanied Singh at the event, announced that his administration would give a government job to a family member of any paramilitary person from the state who dies on duty.