The Central Industrial Security Force has signed an agreement with IIT Hyderabad’s Technology Innovation Hub on Autonomous Navigation, or TiHAN, to strengthen personnel training and institutional preparedness against drone and other asymmetric aerial threats.
The Memorandum of Understanding will allow Assistant Commandant probationers and Sub-Inspector trainees at the CISF’s National Industrial Security Academy to attend specialised short-duration courses at TiHAN. The programme will include practical exposure to drone assembly, flight operations and research into advanced autonomous systems.
The agreement also provides for academic and technical support from TiHAN for a proposed Centre of Excellence for Drone and Anti-Drone Technology at the CISF’s Recruit Training Centre in Behror, Rajasthan. The centre is intended to support the force’s work on technologies and operational capabilities related to unmanned aerial systems.
The collaboration links a national security agency’s training system with an academic innovation hub based in Hyderabad. For the CISF, which guards critical installations and infrastructure, the arrangement is aimed at integrating specialised technical knowledge into the preparation of its officers and personnel.
NISA Director and Inspector General Harpreet Kaur Sohi said the agreement would increase specialisation within the force and support its newly formed functional sector pattern of supervision. “By embedding advanced academic research into our training frameworks, we are creating a dynamic, knowledge-based ecosystem in the CISF,” she said.
Sohi added that the arrangement would equip personnel with technical expertise to anticipate and neutralise future threats while continuing to protect vital assets. The statement did not specify the number of trainees who will participate in the courses, the duration of each capsule programme or the operational timeline for the proposed centre in Rajasthan.
TiHAN Project Director Professor Rajlakshmi P said the agreement would help translate the hub’s autonomous-systems research into operational use for the CISF. The collaboration is also being positioned by the participating institutions as part of the wider push for domestic capability in critical security technologies under the Atmanirbhar Bharat framework.
The MoU comes as drone systems become increasingly relevant to the protection and monitoring of airports, industrial facilities, energy installations and other critical infrastructure. The details released by the CISF and TiHAN focus on training, research support and the proposed Centre of Excellence; they do not set out specific anti-drone equipment procurements or deployment plans. The next steps are the rollout of the specialised courses and the provision of technical support for the centre at Behror.
