Meghalaya home minister Augustine Marak today indicated that the ban on recruitment to the border wing of the state's home guards might be lifted.

"We have realised that instead of winding up, we need to strengthen the department. Some exercise is being done in the line of lifting the ban on recruitment," Marak told a function to mark the annual conference of the civil defence and home guards department.

The recruitment to the border wing of the home guards was stopped after the deployment of BSF along the Indo-Bangla border.

He said a cabinet memo has been passed in this regard and related departments asked to give their views.

"I will be able to pursue it very soon and bring it to cabinet approval. With this we would be able to recruit more," Marak said observing that many officers in the department are due to retire creating more vacancies.

"Unless we recruit more, this department would collapse. I have already appraise the chief minister about this situation and he has already instructed to the principal secretary of finance to look into this," the minister added.

The border wing of the home guards department currently has around 175 vacancies and a good number of officers are scheduled to retire within the next twelve months.

Though the border wing of the home guards are currently deployed for internal security, there is a possibility of them being deployed as a second line of defence on the Indo-Bangla border, especially after frequent firing incidents, officials said.