India to shore up border infrastructure

Development work on the Chinese side near Ladakh area worries New Delhi

The ambitious projects may take five years and require boring five miles through the Pir Panjal range and other tunnels would allow all-weather access to Ladakh, sources told Deccan Herald. The tunnel roads are also to be constructed through Himachal Pradesh.

The Union Home Ministry will take phase-wise construction of 27 roads totalling 804 km in the border areas along the India-China border in the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

The construction, once completed, would immediately facilitate defence and civilian supplies and help operational movement of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) guarding the disputed Sino-Indian border. All these roads are “strategic border roads” and are “located in a very high altitude area” on the Indo-China border, according to the Union home ministry.

The border areas where "strategic construction" are to be carried out with a tight-frame work are snow bound for more than six months. The work has now started after  forest clearances were accorded to the construction with the Supreme Court giving a go-ahead signal.

China only recently completed construction of a 3,310-metre tunnel as part of an ambitious plan to build a highway connecting a remote Tibetan county close to the Indian border with rest of the Himalayan region. It took China more than two years to complete the construction of the tunnel through the snow clad-Galongla mountain located at an altitude of 3,750 metres.China is reportedly also building infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The work on the India-side of the border has difficult terrains. Besides this, the construction of roads was delayed as some parts of these fall in the Reserve Forest areas. The   environmental clearances under Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and the approval of the Supreme Court took long.