Doklam – the region which witnessed the standoff between worlds two super-powers, India and China is back in the news. India’s Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is aggressively working to develop an alternate road which connects the Indian troops to the sensitive Doklam region.

The alternate road will facilitate access to the Doklam region and ease the logistic and deployment difficulties in record time for the Indian troops.

According to a senior army officer“The alternate road will help inter-valley troops transfer and reinforcement.”

Of the 61 strategic roads spanning 3,346 km being built by BRO along the India-China border, 3,298 km are now connected and over 2,400 km, or nearly 72%, of these, are already blacktopped, making them all-weather roads.

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Blacktopping of just six roads with a total length of just 58 km remains,” said Lieutenant General Harpal Singh, director general of BRO. The accelerated construction along the India-China border over the last some years has altered the military dynamics in the region.

This access will reduce travel time for the military by numerous hours. Three more tunnels — Baralach La, Lachung La, and Tanglang La — are under construction and the Rohtang tunnel will be functional from this December.

In Arunachal Pradesh, the 180 km-long road parallel to the India-China border connecting Passighat to Brahmakund is also complete, saving thousands of kilometers of road journey. All the 40-odd bridges along the DSDBO road have been widened and strengthened to allow heavy vehicles to travel with ease.

“Time for moving troops, equipment, supplies, and stocks has decreased by about 40%,” a senior defense official said anonymously. Importantly, the biggest bridge on the DSDBO bridge (road), a challenging construction is now complete.

It is a feat to construct so many roads, given the difficult rocky terrain and that construction season being limited to just three months.

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The officer added: “BRO’s new admixture- based technology — allows constructing roads faster in colder climates where construction season is smaller with material that doesn’t easily disintegrate, unlike traditional constructions.

Despite all these feathers in the cap of BRO, there remains an uphill task to construct more roads to facilitate the military infrastructure. There has been little progress on the railway line which was approved by the defense ministry in 2010, and huge delays in the construction of 73 strategic roads which were first recognized for construction two decades ago.

China, on the other hand, has progressed by leaps and bounds by constructing 14 airbases, an extensive rail network and 54,000 km of roads. It is now constructing underground bases hangers and parking bays by digging tunnels into mountains. Looking at this jaw-dropping Chinese progress, BRO needs to pull up its socks and expedite its projects.

Reported By: Times Of India