With recent face off with China bearing heavy on the mind, union home ministry on Tuesday took stock of its infrastructure and assets along 3,488 kilometre China border and how to augment those.
Sources said in the two-and-a-half hour long meeting chaired by union home minister Rajnath Singh and attended by national security advisor Ajit Doval, top government officials tried to thrash out issues of better road and mobile connectivity, increase in border outposts (BOPs), and ways to stop migration of natives from frontier border areas.
With connectivity being a major concern, home ministry is trying to push the construction of 27 key road project measuring 804 kilometre. Started during UPA in 2004, all the 27 roads estimated to cost Rs1,937 are still running behind schedule because of environmental bottlenecks.
However, the mother of all roads that India wants to build is the 1,800 kilometre long all weather road between Tawang and Vijaynagar in Arunachal Pradesh.
"It will cost more than Rs25,000 crore. A detailed project report (DPR) is being prepared by the ministry of road and transport. Once built, it will put India at par with Chinese in terms of border infrastructure in Arunachal," said an official.
Sources said the ministry is taking it up with the environment ministry on a war-footing and quick clearances are being sought.
To check frequent Chinese incursions, home ministry wants 54 new border outposts (BOPs) to be built for the ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) on fast track basis.
"The construction of these 54 BOPs, six of which have already been constructed, will take the number of total BOPs to 204 on China border, giving much easier access to ITBP to conduct patrols to check Chinese incursions. Majority of these BOPs are being constructed at glacial heights of 9000 - 18,700 feet, in Arunachal Pradesh that shares 1196 km border with China," an official said.
The meeting also discussed in detail on how put in place its mega plan to check migration of native population from forward border areas of Arunachal Pradesh and resettle those back who have migrated to major townships to avail better amenities.
The home ministry has already sought an additional budget of Rs5000 crore, over and above Rs 28,000 crore allocated for China border, for resettlement plan, which it wants to put in place with the help of Arunachal government.
Under the plan, funds will be allocated to the state government to build schools, hospitals, village roads, ration shops and even recreation centres for the native population so that they could remain in their ancestral village and keep serving as eyes and ears to check Chinese incursions and their plans to lay claim on Indian territory.
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