Post the Pathankot incident, the Central Government has approved an integrated smart power fencing called Integrated Perimeter Security System (IPSS) for 23 Air Bases, said Union Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt on 17 December in Parliament. The pilot site was commissioned in February 2021.
He further said that Bharat Electronics Limited has signed a contract with Indian Air Force (IAF) for establishing the Systems for 23 Air Bases across the country.
BEL has given sub-contract to many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and System Integrators to do the said project. The details are as follows:
i) Radar: OEM ELTA.
ii) Underground Vibration Detection System/DIDS: OEM Future Fiber Technology vide their SI M/s Athena.
iii) CCTV: OEM FLIR, USA.
iv) ESPF: OEM Gallagher vide their SI Ved Techno for pilot site and OEM Crown Solar for 22 sites.
v) Containerised Data Centre: OEM Rittal vide their SI Presto.
vi) Network: OEM Cisco vide their SI Baydatacom.
vii) IT infrastructure: HPE vide their System Integrated (SI) AAE.
The total cost of the project is approximately Rs 1045 Crores.
BEL has qualified the project during TEC at Hindon Airbase in November 2018 with the OEM Gallagher. However, at Pilot site, the ESPF solution of Gallagher failed to provide the following features of IPSS:
- High availability of Control centre > Software application of ESPF.
- Differential alarm sound for intrusion event and battery low event.
- Indication of change in resistance owing to vegetation.
- Tampering Alarm Energiser.
