NEW DELHI: India and China have moved closer to inking the new Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) that outlines several confidence-building measures to defuse face-offs and tensions between rival troops along the unresolved Line of Actual Control ( LAC ).

A high-level Indian delegation, with representatives from the foreign and defence ministries, will go to Beijing in September to "fine-tune" the BDCA after India finalised its "second counter-draft" to the "revised draft" submitted by China earlier. "The final BDCA can now be settled across the table," said a source.

The BDCA goes "further" than earlier pacts like the 2005 joint protocol on the "modalities for implementation of military CBMs along the LAC" in charting out "more de-escalatory mechanisms" and military-to-military interactions to ensure local issues are settled locally between "local commanders on the ground".

The two sides, for instance, have agreed to additional BPM (border personnel meeting) set-ups in all the three sectors — western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal) – to add to the existing ones at Chushul, Nathu La and Bum La.

While both sides have agreed to Kibuthu in Arunachal Pradesh, the BPM points in the western and middle sectors are yet to be pinpointed. "The Mana Pass-Lipulekh area in the middle sector has, however, not worked out so far. The aim is that the BPM mechanism should effectively kick in whenever there is a situation on the border," a source said.

India wants "greater predictability and stability in how incidents are handled" after the 21-day "unusual" face-off in April-May, during which the two rival armies pitched tents and carried out banner drills after PLA troops intruded 19 km into Depsang valley in the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector in Ladakh.

India has also proposed a DGMO-level hotline between the two armies, on the lines of the one New Delhi has with Islamabad. Conversely, there could be a hotline between the Eastern Army Command chief based in Kolkata and the commander of the Chinese Chengdu Military Area Command, which is responsible for Tibet and almost the entire LAC.

The first Chinese draft for the proposed BDCA submitted in March had raised the hackles of the defence ministry and Army because it suggested both sides should freeze existing troop and infrastructure levels along the LAC.

That came even as the government was getting ready to approve the overall Rs 90,000 crore proposal to raise a new mountain strike corps along with two "independent" infantry brigades and two "independent" armoured brigades (a total of over 80,000 soldiers) over the next eight years to plug operational gaps as well as acquire "some ground offensive capabilities" against China. India, after all, has lagged far behind China's massive build-up of military infrastructure along the LAC.

China later agreed to drop the clauses concerned in the BDCA draft. Then, on July 17, the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared raising of the new mountain corps and brigades.