GUWAHATI, April 24 � The Government of India has sanctioned construction of 27 roads along the international border with China to facilitate movement of the border guarding forces, while, another major road along the border with Bhutan in Assam has been approved.
The annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) revealed that to redress the situation arising out of poor road connectivity, which hampered the operational capability of the forces deployed along the border with China, the Government of India has decided to undertake phase-wise construction of 27 roads in the border areas in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim. The total cost for the same has been estimated at Rs 1937 crore.
Of these roads, the Border Roads Organization will construct 15, the CPWD will construct eight and NPCC will construct two roads. The PWD of Himachal Pradesh has been entrusted with the responsibility of constructing one road. The detailed project reports of the roads have already been approved by the High Level Empowered Committee of the MHA, while, the forest and environment clearance of 26 of those roads has been received.
Meanwhile, the Government of India has approved 313 kilometres of road along the international border with Bhutan in Assam at a project cost of Rs 1259 crore. The project is to be completed in five years and the State Government has constituted a committee headed by an additional chief secretary to sort out all the issues pertaining to the construction of the road including land acquisition.
The State PWD has submitted a detailed project report for 61 kilometres of the road, the MHA report said.
The MHA report further said that 13 battalions of SSB personnel have been deployed along the international border with Bhutan and 131 border outposts have been set up. A bilateral mechanism has been put in place to assess the threat perception from time to time and the mechanism has been quite successful, the report added.
