Jammu, Jun 25
To cement its base and ground in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the first "group centre" of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) is coming up here at city outskirts.
Reliable sources on Thursday told here that around 273 kanals (272.96) of land has been allotted to the SSB by the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) for raising the group centre with complete and established infrastructure.
“A full-fledged group centre is coming up in Sidhra area on city outskirts,” official sources here said.
The group centre will have multi facilities, family quarters, offices and other establishments within the closed walls, sources said.
“The land is approximately worth Rs 26 crores,” sources said and added that the first installment of Rs 15 Crore has already been deposited to the JDA.
"While the remaining amount will be cleared soon by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the land has already been allotted to the SSB authorities last month,” sources added.
The SSB has six frontiers and 18 Station Headquarters across the country. In Jammu and Kashmir, presently it has five Battalions.
In the wake of the Chinese conflict in 1962, it was felt that the borders of the country could not be protected with the force of rifles alone. The Special Service Bureau (now Sashastra Seema Bal) was thus conceived in November 1962 and eventually created in March 1963 with the sole objective of achieving ‘total security preparedness’ in the remote border areas for performing a ‘stay-behind’ role in the event of a war.
The SSB was started in North Assam, North Bengal, hill districts of Uttar Pradesh (now Uttarakhand), Himachal Pradesh, part of Punjab and Ladakh area of J&K.
Later, the jurisdiction of SSB was extended to Manipur, Tripura and Jammu (1965), Meghalaya (1975), Sikkim (1976), Rajasthan (1985), South Bengal, Nagaland and Mizoram (1989).
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