Attari (Punjab), July 21 - They might not be taking on combat positions straightaway but women guards of the Border Security Force (BSF) will soon be deployed in Punjab villages along the 553-km fenced border between India and Pakistan.

BSF officials say nearly 180 young women recruits, aged between 18 and 22 years, will be deployed along the India-Pakistan border soon after they complete this week their physical training at the BSF's Kharkan camp, 10 km from Hoshiarpur town. Some recruits will be deployed on the India-Bangladesh border later.

This is the first batch of women recruits to be deployed on the frontier by the BSF, which was last year sanctioned nearly 700 posts of women personnel for the first time.

Preparing to welcome the new recruits at border outposts (BOPs), BSF authorities are making arrangements for separate living quarters, recreation areas and ladies' toilets for them as they take to their field jobs.

BSF commandant H.S. Dhillion says that the new recruits will get all facilities at the BOPs.

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram will attend the passing out parade of the women recruits at the Kharkan camp later this week. The recruits - 45 women from West Bengal and rest from Punjab - have completed a 36-week training schedule at the Kharkan camp.

Perhaps the happiest lot to see the women recruits will be residents of border villages, especially those who have their agricultural land across the barbed-wire fencing that has been erected 500 metres to one kilometre inside Indian territory from the international border.

'This will make life easier for us. Going to our own fields across the fence through border gates was a major harassment, especially for women-folk. Our women will feel more confident in the presence of women BSF guards,' farmer Gurdev Singh, who lives near Kahangarh BOP, told IANS.

Since going across the fence to their own fields involved frisking and other restrictions, many rural women from border areas had stopped going since the fence came up in early 1990s.