No more tears

...for the BSF, as it plans to automate its Tear Smoke Unit plant

The Border Security Force (BSF) is getting ready to spread a few tears!

To meet demands placed by African countries, the force is planning to produce more tear gas shells and grenades at its Tear Smoke Unit (TSU) plant at Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh. The unit will soon be introducing fully automated machines to produce more tear gas.

A senior BSF officer, wishing anonymity, said that the unit recently created a record by producing 1.60 lakh tear gas munitions in a year. "We have the sanctioned capacity of producing 1.25 lakh units of tear gas shells and grenades. But this year we crossed the mark and we can go further with better systems," said the officer.

He added the unit is receiving large-scale orders from African countries and Turkey. "A very small amount of our production is for export. We are mostly busy meeting the demands of our own security forces. The manual process restricts the production capacity," said the officer.

The automation is likely to raise the productivity at least by three to four times.u00a0 This will help, especially during rainy season. "Rains drastically hamper output of tear gas munitions. The automation will make us overcome this hurdle to a large extent," said a senior BSF officer, on the condition of anonymity.

But, it will take minimum of three years to become operational.

The offcer said that the TSU, the sole manufacturers of tear gas munitions in the country, recently made a record by producing 1.60 lakh tear gas munitions in a year. "We have the sanctioned capacity of producing 1.25 lakh units of tear gas munitions (shells and grenades). But this year we crossed the mark of 1.60 lakh and we can go further with better systems and machinery," said the officer.

He further said that the unit has started to receive large-scale orders from African countries and Turkey. "We export a small proportion of the total annual production, as most of the time we are busy meeting the demands of our own security forces. Moreover, the manual process anyways restricts the production capacity," said the officer.

In 2007, while Turkey bought 10,025 tear gas munitions from the TSU, Nepal, a regular buyer of the tear gas shells, purchased the record number of 13, 400 units worth Rs 78, 48, 400.

"The number of buyers is going up with more African countries joining the list. So far we have been successfully meeting the demands placed by s the state and central government agencies like defence and para-military forces. Now we must explore the international market specially the African countries. Roughly, we are gearing up to cross the mark of five lakh munitions per year," said an officer, who wished not to be quoted.