Travel to BOPs to celebrate RDay with jawans: SSB to officers

Border guarding force SSB has directed all its officers and field commanders to travel to remote frontier posts, locations in the interiors of Naxal affected areas and in Jammu and Kashmir to celebrate the Republic Day with their jawans tomorrow.
The forces' headquarter, acting on directions from chief Archana Ramasundaram, has issued orders that mandates officers from the ranks of Deputy Commandants up to Additional Director General to travel to the outposts along the Indo-Nepal, Indo-Bhutan borders and those located in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas and in the counter-insurgency grid in Jammu and Kashmir.
"The idea behind this initiative is also to establish direct communication between the officers of headquarters and the jawans posted at remote locations on the borders.

"This endeavour will also ensure that senior officers appreciate the problems of jawans and instill confidence in them that the Director General and the headquarters are sensitive towards their problems and making all out efforts to provide them better facilities," the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) said in a statement.
During the events to mark the 68th Republic Day tomorrow, local population residing in the vicinity of SSB camps will also be invited to attend the flag hoisting ceremony with a view to forge "better relationship" between the men in uniform and the civilians.
"All officers will be celebrating #RepublicDay with the jawans. No overlapping of BOPs (border out posts). Each officer to visit a different BOP. Orders issued," the SSB said in a tweet message.

The new directive is being seen as an enhanced initiative being undertaken by the uniformed forces to connect with their personnel, in the backdrop of a number of security forces jawans recently taking to the social media to air their grievances.

The 80,000 personnel strong SSB also recently launched an Android-based application (App) as a trial version on Google playstore.
The App is aimed to work as a communication bridge between various ranks of the force.
Jawans and officers of the force can check details about their salaries, provident fund, other service details, dispatch of grievances, transfer application and information about vigilance matters using this facility.

"However, the full operational version along with a Hindi variant is being developed after obtaining feedback of the trial version from the men and women of the force," a senior SSB officer said.
The SSB is tasked to guard the 1,751 km long Indo-Nepal and 699km long Indo-Bhutan borders apart from rendering a variety of roles in the internal security grid of the country.
Country's largest paramilitary CRPF too is working to launch such an App for its personnel while the CISF is working to add new features to a similar platform it has on the internet for its staff.