NEW DELHI: The government on Friday for the first time admitted that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops had intruded as much as 19 km inside Indian territory to pitch their tents there, even as it kept a third flag meeting between local commanders in eastern Ladakh “on hold’’ to give China “time and space’’ to withdraw its soldiers on its own.

This formal admission came in a note submitted by defence secretary Shashikant Sharma to the parliamentary standing committee on defence, which said India has “deployed forces to keep a close watch on the border’’ after over 30 PLA troops intruded 19 km into the Depsang Bulge area of Ladakh on April 15.

With rival soldiers locked in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation for the last 11 days at an altitude of 16,300 feet, this is the worst-ever standoff between the armies in over 25 years. Amid the flurry of top-level meetings among defence minister A K Antony, national security advisor Shivshankar Menon and Army chief General Bikram Singh on Friday, contingency plans to plug operational gaps and defences in Chumar, Spanggur Gap and the areas surrounding Depsang Valley were also reviewed.

The IAF, too, resumed its air-dropping of supplies to Army troops on the ground in the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector after they were briefly stopped in wake of the “deep’’ Chinese intrusion .

Sources said India is “not in a hurry’’ to hold another flag meeting in Ladakh after the first two such meets on April 18 and April 23 failed to break the deadlock and ended with only charges being traded between the two armies. China, in fact, is believed to have now asked for a flag meeting but India has kept the request “pending’’ to see if diplomatic channels being worked deliver results over the next few days.

A day after foreign minister Salman Khurshid held India was “not a pushover’’ and that he hoped the Chinese incursion issue would be resolved before he visits Beijing on May 9, defence minister A K Antony said, “Negotiations and consultations are going on at various levels to find a peaceful solution to the Chinese incursion issue.’’

The defence secretary and other MoD officials appeared before the parliamentary committee after its members wanted to know the actual ground situation in Ladakh. The meeting of the committee was cut short as the “quorum’’ was incomplete and the members present were also dissatisfied with the sketchy information provided by the officials. The next meeting of the committee on May 30 will now take up the matter.

As per the note, it was on April 16 that Indian Army patrols reported the presence of the PLA troops in Depsang “19 km west of the Line of Actual Control and beyond our understanding of the Chinese perception of LAC’’.

“As per established mechanisms, the issue has been taken up at the level of flag meetings and through diplomatic channels to maintain status quo and resolve the issue through existing mechanisms,’’ it said.

The note emphasised that “specific incidents of transgressions due to differences in the perception of LAC’’ are taken up with the Chinese side through established mechanisms such as hotlines, flag meetings, border personnel meetings and normal diplomatic channels. “In addition to this, the government has signed a working mechanism on consultation and coordination on India-China border affairs with the Chinese in March, 2012,’’ it added.