The Madhukar Gupta Committee is a High-Level Committee, an institutional panel constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). It was created in April 2016 and was chaired by retired Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta. The committee's formation was a direct response to the terrorist assault on the Pathankot Air Force Station in January 2016, which exposed significant vulnerabilities in the border security apparatus. Its mandate was to undertake a comprehensive review of the protection of the India-Pakistan border and suggest a comprehensive approach to fix gaps and vulnerabilities in fencing and security.
The committee submitted its report to the government on August 29, 2016. Its key mechanism for strengthening border protection was the recommendation to deploy the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS). This system works by layering advanced technology, such as thermal imagers, ground sensors, radars, and laser-based intruder-detection systems, to create a virtual fence where physical fencing is impractical, particularly in riverine and marshy stretches. The committee also provided separate recommendations for the four Indian states sharing the border with Pakistan—Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir—based on their distinct topography. The committee's work connects directly to the Border Security Force (BSF), the lead agency for the border, and its recommendations have evolved India's border protection doctrine from conventional physical fencing toward integrated electronic management. The CIBMS concept, which the committee crystallised, has since been operationalised with pilot projects inaugurated in 2018.