A Force Of The Future

Keeping the Chinese at bay, streamlining and modernising the armed forces, fortifying defence infrastructure and building self-reliance...it has been a long and demanding to-do list

- PRADIP R. SAGAR

Rajnath Singh, Minister of Defence

AN ARMY MARCHES ON its stomach, but its provisions roll along roads. In January 2023, a month after a clash along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between Indian and Chinese troops in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, defence minister Rajnath Singh visited the northeastern state. Using the peppy shorthand for 'brother', he quipped that the BRO (Border Road Organisation) personnel were "brothers of our armed forces". Indeed, the Narendra Modi government has accorded the utmost importance to building border roads. In the past five years, the BRO has constructed over 3,600 km of roads, mostly along the LAC, at an overall cost of Rs 20,767 crore, to facilitate all-weather access to forward areas. With this massive infrastructure push, the Indian military has improved its battle readiness along the China border. Little wonder then that in the Union budget for 2023-24, BRO's capital outlay is Rs 5,000 crore, as against Rs 3,500 crore in 2022-23-a jump of 43 per cent.