"The government is well aware of the need to maintain all-round vigil on the nation's borders...keeping our war machinery in readiness and to be able to mobilize troops to forward areas at short-notice is imperative," said defence minister Arun Jaitley, in his customary address to the armed forces on Independence Day-eve.
As earlier reported by TOI, the government has decided to fast-track clearances for border roads, bridges, airfields and railway lines by relaxing environmental norms. The defence establishment has for long identified delays in environmental clearances as one of the main stumbling blocks for the country's tardy attempts to strategically counter China's huge build-up of military infrastructure, from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, all along the LAC.
The construction of around 80 roads, adding up to around 6,000km, along the LAC as well as infrastructure build-up in about 5,000 acre of land in Arunachal and Assam for the new Army mountain strike corps and other formations being raised against China, for instance, has been "on the hold" due to lack of environmental nods.
An Indian Army officer stands guard at a point on LAC in Arunachal Pradesh. (TOI file photo)
Moreover, just 18 of the 73 "strategic" roads (adding up to 3,808km) identified for construction along the LAC for better troop mobility almost a decade ago, for instance, have been fully completed till now. All the 73 all-weather roads, with more east-west lateral links as well as better access routes to strategic peaks and valleys, were to be completed by 2012.
"In order to carry out these tasks in a time-bound manner without cost overruns, the border roads organization has also been authorized to engage outside expert agencies in the building of tough and technologically-intensive border roads on a case-to-case basis," said Jaitley.
The minister said the extension off the railway network in border areas is another way to ensure swift mobilization of troops and weapon systems. "To begin with, the government has allocated Rs 1,000 crore for accelerating the development of a railway system in the border areas," he said.
Lack of funds has been one of the major stumbling blocks till now for construction of the 14 "strategic" rail lines on the fronts with Pakistan and China, which were approved by the defence ministry way back in November 2010.
China, in sharp contrast, now has at least five fully-operational airbases, an extensive rail network and over 58,000km of roads in the Tibet autonomous region, which makes it possible for it to swiftly move over 30 divisions (each with over 15,000 soldiers) to the LAC to outnumber Indian forces by 3:1.
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