Doklam effect: Army sanctions roads near LAC

With China ramping up its infrastructure in Tibet towards the Indian border at breakneck speed, and with the recent Doklam stand- off on their mind, the Army has decided to boost infrastructure along the nearly 4,000 km long India- China border, including around areas of dispute.

Lt. Gen. Vijay Singh, director general staff duties, briefing reporters on the Army Comm anders’ Conference, said that the Army has decided to allot ` 72 crore a year to the Border Roads Organisation ( BRO) to build four key roads that link up to lofty Himalayan passes which open up to Tibet.

These roads — connecting to Niti, Lipulekh, Thangla- 1 and Tsangchokla passes, all of which are in Uttarakhand, near the Line of Actual Control ( LAC), the de- facto border between India and China — will be completed by 2020, taking the estimated expenditure to ` 200 crore in three years.

The decision, taken by the Army’s top commanders at their ongoing biannual meet, keeps in view the road and rail links the Chinese are building across the border.

For example, a road link in the next three years to the 5,068- metre high Niti Pass will preempt a Chinese rail link project to Burang

( Purang) near the LAC in the next 14 years.

Road building in Uttarakhand by BRO has been painfully slow.

In 2014- 15, only 33 km of roads were laid, while it was 49 km in 2015- 16 and 34 km in 2016- 2017.

Uttarakhand has a 345 km- long border with China, most of which remains inaccessible. The lack of infrastructure development is also due to a conscious Indian policy in the recent past of not developing its borders with China so as to create a buffer area.

In his address at the week- long conference that began in Delhi on Monday, Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat asked the commanders to be prepared for all eventualities at “all times”, while defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasised the need to guard against