How India is ramping up border infra to boost military readiness

India's infrastructure push along its farthest frontiers, a firm and focussed response to China's thrust on developing its border areas, is set to get a boost with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airfields and helipads -- the latest in a raft of projects worth thousands of crores that have supported the military's pursuit of robust deterrence against the neighbour with whom the country has been locked in a standoff in eastern Ladakh for more than three years, Border Roads Organisation (BRO) officials aware of the matter said on Monday.

- Rahul Singh 

The military's readiness, among other things, depends on infrastructure in forward areas -a landscape dotted with towering mountains, valleys and rivers -- and India is firing on all cylinders to ensure that its deployed forces hold an HELEER PIC THE advantageous position, the officials said, asking not to be named.

As things stand, China has an edge over India in border infrastructure, but the country is on the fastest way to bridge the gaps, they said.

The progress is being tracked at the highest levels of the government, said one of the officials cited above.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh, who has ensured that BRO gets adequate funds to build and modernise border infrastructure, will on Tuesday inaugurate the projects near India's border with China, with the increased connectivity in forward areas having a direct bearing on military mobility, logistics support for deployed forces, and movement of civilians in border states.

90 projects in store 

Singh will dedicate to the country 90 infrastructure projects constructed at a cost of 2,941 crore in areas stretching from Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim to Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh at a time when India and China are in talks to resolve lingering outstanding problems along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The minister will remotely inaugurate the projects from Jammu where he will open BRO's 422metre Devak bridge on Bishnah-Kaulpur-Phul Pur road. The bridge will facilitate speedy induction of troops, heavy equipment and mechanised forces to forward areas and will also boost the region's socioeconomic development, the officials said.

"With each new project in the border areas, we are bridging the infrastructure gap with China. We have made significant progress since the standoff began, and many more key works will materialise in the coming years," said a second official.