The Centre on Sunday reportedly approved the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System, a five-layer elaborate plan to end infiltration along the 2,900-km western border with Pakistan, and to prevent more Pathankot-like attacks as well as smuggling. All movement across the border will be tracked round the clock through technology, in the first such move since Independence to completely lock down the western border, The Times of India reported.

Technology including CCTV cameras, thermal imaging and night-vision devices, battlefield surveillance radars, underground monitoring sensors and laser barriers will be installed in two years' time. Up to 130 unfenced sections – including riverine and mountain terrain from Jammu and Kashmir to Gujarat – will also have laser barriers, as infiltrators often use these routes to enter the country.

While the project will cost the government a significant sum, the Centre believes this is the only way to prevent more terror attacks. The integrated system will be set up to ensure that if one device does not work, the control room will be alerted by another in case of a breach, the report quoted officials as saying. The system will also help nab those in India who help people across the border, a senior Home Ministry official said. A global tender was issued two weeks ago, and work on two pilot projects along 5-km stretches in Punjab and Jammu has already begun began.