From ground to the skies: How drones are reshaping operations along borders

The Indian Army has formally assumed primary responsibility for monitoring and controlling low-altitude airspace along the country's borders, overseeing flyi...

What Happened

The Indian Army has formally assumed primary responsibility for monitoring and controlling low-altitude airspace along the country's borders, overseeing flying objects within 35 kilometres of the border and up to an altitude of 3 kilometres.
Approximately 97% of all drone detection and counter-drone activity within this defined land-airspace envelope will now be conducted by the Army, consolidating what was previously a fragmented multi-agency responsibility.
Specialised Air Command and Control Centres are being established along borders with both China and Pakistan, designed to fuse data from radars, electro-optical systems, and human intelligence for real-time airspace management.
India continues to face persistent drone incursions along the western border, including use of sophisticated drones for narcotics and weapons smuggling in Punjab, representing an evolving hybrid security threat.
The Border Security Force opened its first drone warfare school at its training academy in Madhya Pradesh in June 2025, institutionalising counter-drone training for paramilitary forces.
The government has deployed the National Counter Rogue Drone Technology (NCRDT) Policy framework, with border forces using indigenous anti-drone systems including jammers, net guns, and RF detectors.

Static Topic Bridges

Drone Rules 2021 and India's UAS Regulatory Framework

India's civil drone operations are governed by the Drone Rules, 2021, notified by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 25 August 2021, replacing the earlier UAS Rules, 2021. The rules liberalised drone operations for civilian and commercial use while introducing safety mandates including the "No Permission — No Takeoff" (NPNT) protocol and geo-fencing requirements. The legal framework for drone operations now sits under the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024, which replaced the Aircraft Act, 1934.

Drones are classified by weight into five categories: Nano (up to 250 g), Micro (250 g–2 kg), Small (2–25 kg), Medium (25–150 kg), and Large (above 150 kg).
The Digital Sky Platform, maintained by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), is the centralised permission system operationalising the NPNT principle.
The number of forms for drone operators was reduced from 25 to 5 and fee types from 72 to 4 under Drone Rules 2021, reflecting a liberalisation-with-oversight approach.
Border areas, security-sensitive zones, and areas near airports are designated as Red Zones where drone operations are prohibited without specific clearance.
The government allocated approximately $234 million under a Drone Incentive Programme to promote domestic production of drones, components, software, and counter-drone technologies.

Connection to this news: The civil regulatory framework (Drone Rules 2021) and the military-security framework (Army's border airspace management, NCRDT Policy) represent two distinct but intersecting domains of drone governance. The security threat from rogue drones — narcotics drops, surveillance, weaponised payloads — exploits gaps between civil airspace management and military counter-drone systems. The Army's consolidated authority over the 35-km border envelope is, in effect, a security overlay on top of the civil framework.

Atmanirbhar Bharat and Indigenous Defence Technology

The Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative in defence aims to reduce India's dependence on foreign arms imports by promoting domestic research, development, and production of military equipment. The Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (DAP 2020) created preferential procurement categories (Buy Indian — IDDM, Buy Indian, Make in India) and established the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as the primary R&D entity for indigenous systems.

India is among the world's largest arms importers; the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative targets raising the defence manufacturing output to Rs 1.75 lakh crore by 2025, including Rs 35,000 crore worth of exports.
Several indigenous anti-drone systems — including laser-based directed energy weapons, RF jammers, net guns, and microwave emitters — have been developed under DRDO and are being deployed along borders.
The Army's "secure-by-design" framework for military drones includes encryption and secure communication links to prevent hacking, spoofing, and signal jamming.
The Drone Incentive Programme (Production Linked Incentive for drones) supports manufacturers of drones, drone components, and counter-drone technologies to build a domestic industrial base.
India's Defence Corridor projects in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are intended to anchor domestic aerospace and defence manufacturing clusters.

Connection to this news: The BSF's drone warfare school, the Army's new airspace command structure, and the deployment of indigenous counter-drone systems are all expressions of the Atmanirbhar defence policy applied to the emerging drone threat. The BSF school institutionalises a human capital pipeline for counter-drone expertise, while the indigenous systems reduce dependence on foreign suppliers for a capability that is simultaneously a civil commercial technology and a frontline security tool.

Hybrid Threats and the Evolving Nature of Border Security

Hybrid threats combine conventional military tactics with non-military instruments — cyber operations, economic pressure, disinformation, and grey-zone activities — to achieve strategic objectives below the threshold of open warfare. Drone-based intrusions for smuggling, surveillance, and potential weaponisation represent a classic hybrid threat: deniable, low-cost, and exploiting the gap between peacetime law-enforcement rules of engagement and wartime military responses.

The India-Pakistan border in Punjab has seen a marked increase in drone-based narcotics and small arms drops, with drones used to avoid physical border crossing.
Drones are small, low-flying, and can be made of radar-absorbing materials, making detection by conventional radars difficult — driving the need for multi-sensor fusion (radar + electro-optical + RF detection + human intelligence).
The consolidation of border airspace management under the Army reflects a shift from reactive policing to proactive airspace dominance within the 35-km buffer zone.
Air Command and Control Nodes at borders are designed to reduce sensor-to-shooter latency — the time between detecting a rogue drone and neutralising it.
India's counter-drone strategy integrates hard-kill options (lasers, nets, kinetic interceptors) and soft-kill options (signal jamming, GPS spoofing) for layered defence.

Connection to this news: The Army's formal assumption of 35-km border airspace authority is a doctrinal response to the hybrid threat. It places drone counter-measures under unified military command, resolving coordination failures between BSF, CRPF, and Army that previously allowed rogue drones to operate in the seams between agency jurisdictions. This reflects the broader lesson from conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East that drone swarms and solo drone attacks have become cost-effective weapons accessible even to non-state actors.

Key Facts & Data

Indian Army's border airspace authority: 35 km from the border, up to 3 km altitude; covers 97% of counter-drone activity.
BSF's first drone warfare school: opened June 2025 at its training academy in Madhya Pradesh.
Drone Incentive Programme: approximately $234 million allocated to promote domestic drone production and counter-drone technology.
Drone Rules, 2021: notified 25 August 2021 by Ministry of Civil Aviation; operationalises NPNT via the Digital Sky Platform.
Drone weight categories: Nano (up to 250 g), Micro (250 g–2 kg), Small (2–25 kg), Medium (25–150 kg), Large (above 150 kg).
National Counter Rogue Drone Technology (NCRDT) Policy: the framework governing detection, identification, and neutralisation of rogue drones.
Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024: current overarching aviation law (replaced Aircraft Act, 1934).
Air Command and Control Centres: being established along India's borders with both China and Pakistan for multi-sensor drone data fusion.
Atmanirbhar Bharat defence manufacturing target: Rs 1.75 lakh crore output; Rs 35,000 crore exports.