A pilot project on the use of technology to strengthen border security (Smart Fencing) was implemented in Dhubri (Assam). We will implement this on all borders… We will focus on creation of developmental and other necessary infrastructure in border areas to ensure that border security is strengthened.

The 2019 manifesto's border security promise is unusually specific about what would be scaled: "A pilot project on the use of technology to strengthen border security (Smart Fencing) was implemented in Dhubri (Assam). We will implement this on all borders." A second commitment covers "developmental and other necessary infrastructure in border areas".

The Dhubri pilot was real — the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System, using laser and radar sensors, thermal imagers and command-and-control software to cover riverine stretches where physical fencing is impossible. Extending it to all borders would be a very large undertaking across roughly 15,000 km of land frontier plus riverine sectors.

What has actually been extended is not reported. The Ministry of Home Affairs was asked directly on 25 March 2025 "whether the Government faces delays in constructing critical border infrastructure like fencing, outposts and roads due to funding shortages and inter-agency disputes." The answer neither confirms nor denies delays. It states that the government "is committed to construction and modernization of critical border infrastructure, such as fencing, border outposts, floodlights and roads", that "The Ministry conducts regular reviews with executing agencies and State Governments", and that "dedicated State-Level Steering Committees periodically review the progress of border works along the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders."

There is no number anywhere in it. Not kilometres of fence built, not the number of border outposts completed against sanction, not the length under smart surveillance, not expenditure, and not a single project reported as delayed — in reply to a question specifically about delays. On surveillance the wording is generic: "specialized surveillance equipment which have been installed at strategic locations", alongside "detailed vulnerability mapping, deployment of additional manpower", "round-the-clock patrolling" and "anti-tunneling exercises".

Some of that reticence is legitimate. Publishing which stretches of the India-Pakistan border are covered by sensors and which are not would be an operational disclosure no government should make, and this fact-check does not fault the ministry for withholding it. But the promise was made publicly, in a manifesto, in terms specific enough to invite measurement — "on all borders" — and the same government that made it publishes nothing that would let a citizen check it.

That is why the accuracy is recorded as unverifiable rather than graded, and delivery as partly delivered: work has plainly continued, and its extent against the promise cannot be established from any public document we hold.