To keep pace with massive infrastructure expansion by China in Tibet, Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has embarked upon a major plan to set up a 5,000 km road network in the entire North-East to spur development as well as tourism.

“A plan to set up road networks over a 5,000 kms stretch is underway and the project would be completed in the shortest possible time,” Minister of State for Defence, M M Pallam Raju, who is currently on a seven-day visit here to monitor the progress of the works. His remarks assume significance as even 45 years after the debacle the Indian forces faced in the area road links to the border is still not to the desired level.The absence of road and infrastructure network has not permitted deployment of troops to the desired level, Defence officials argue, but Raju said the government now plans to put all this behind as a major action plan has been put on the fast track to connect these remote areas of the country.

Chinese soldiers can be deployed right up to the border on vehicles but Indian soldiers sometimes need to trek up to 13 km on foot to get to the border, said S S Porwal, chief engineer of Vartak project of the BRO, that is building roads in the North East under six major projects. “Along with increasing connectivity, the new road network being constructed would also spur tourism,” Raju said. The roads could also become link-ways, when major East to West road corridors to link India with East Asian countries starts to take shape.The development of roads in these areas, undertaken by the BRO, would help the infrastructure-starved region immensely as good transport is one of the basic requirement for economic growth, Raju said.

Lt Gen K S Rao, Director General, BRO, said the entire network of roads under the organisation’s projects will serve the operational requirement of the Army.Citing the work of double-laning the NH-52 connecting Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, Rao said due to the upgradation of the highway, “heavy equipment can move in right away”. The government is expected to allot Rs. 50,000 crore over the next five years for development of roads in the North East.

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