Awarded for special service at high altituides along India's norther border.
For police recipients, these medals have not normally been officially manufactured and issued, but were, instead, made locally by independent manufacturers and the policemen can either buy them from these shops or the battalions buy it and give it to the qualifying constables. This gives rise to great variability in manufacture and even in design details.
Established: 1986.
Obverse: Circular 35-mm copper-nicklel medal with the national emblem in the center. On either side, the legend "Ucchh Tungta Medal [Hindi] / UCCHH TUNGTA MEDAL". Suspended from a non-swiveling straight bar. Usually named on the edge.
Reverse: A somewhat stylized scene of the Himalayan mountains. The reverse is similar to that of the Siachen Glacier Medal, although these mountains are unpopulated (as opposed to the glacier medal, where there are troops and a helicopter).
Ribbon: 32 mm, medium blue with a series of 1½ mm white chevrons, approximately 6 mm apart. The ribbon is observed with a great deal of variation, but never of consistent high quality. Many specimens are produced from what seems to be thin plasticized paper, while others are made from a coarse, almost plastic, material (where the medium blue almost seems to have been painted on! all are distinctly one-sided.