What is Operation Shield? Civil Defence Mock Drill In Border States Scheduled For May 31

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has declared that the second one segment of the countrywide civil defence mock drill, codenamed ‘Operation Shield’, shall be hung on May 31, 2025, alongside India’s western border states, particularly Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, and Chandigarh. The workout is to check degree of preparedness towards most probably adversarial threats, preserving in view the new safety buildups.

#WATCH | Chandigarh | On Civil Defence Exercise “Operation Shield”, Additional Chief Secretary (Home, Jails) to the Government of Haryana, Dr Sunita Mishra says, “…The mock drill will be conducted throughout Haryana on 31st May. We will also be following the guidelines of the… pic.twitter.com/XpTT7F7mHE

— ANI (@ANI) May 30, 2025

The drill is being organised via the Additional Director General of Civil Defence and will likely be performed beneath Section 19 of the Civil Defence Rules, 1968.

Backdrop Of Operation Shield

The transfer comes after larger tensions with Pakistan, specifically because the Pahalgam terror assault in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, which killed 26 other people. India retaliated via starting Operation Sindoor on May 7, which hit a number of terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Following such operations, defence departments identified prone gaps in civil readiness in high-risk spaces. The May 31 simulation workout seeks to guage and cope with those loopholes with real-time simulation and workout in emergency responses.

Key Features Of The Drill

According to officers, Operation Shield will contain a complete set of civil defence protocols, together with:

• Activation of centrally managed air raid sirens
• Enforcement of blackout protocols in civilian-populated spaces
• Mock evacuation of households from army cantonments in line with hypothetical drone moves
• Deployment of emergency clinical groups and cell hospitals
• Transportation of essential assets, together with blood gadgets

The Directorate General of Fire Services and Home Guards had already noticed that the preliminary segment of the drill, on May 7, known vital readiness deficiencies. Subsequently, the Home Ministry issued orders on May 9, exercising emergency powers and sanctioning price range in the course of the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for remedial movements.

The government mentioned that those workouts are vital to reinforce civilian and army coordination, specifically alongside India’s unrest-prone western border.