Red tape halts roads along China

New Delhi, November 12
An ambitious project to build 73 more roads for strategic purposes all along the border with China has got entwined in red tape. This despite the fact that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself had announced a major ramp up of infrastructure.

All these roads were planned in the past two years as part of India’s strategic needs projected by the security agencies. These were to connect remote lying areas in India along the Chinese border and aid faster movement of men and material in case of any emergency. The move had come after the Chinese surprised India by building a vast road and rail network in Tibet and in areas very close to the border between the two countries.

For the 73 roads, the mandatory clearance from the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) is awaited. The ministry of defence was startled after it came to know that the construction of roads had been held up as the mandatory clearances were still awaited.

The MoD has now “reminded” the MoEF to speed up the matter in view of the national interest involved in these projects. The target was to progressively complete all the roads by 2012 but the progress was slow, sources said.

The matter had come up for discussion in the last conference of the commanders of the armed forces in Delhi a few days ago.

On its part the MoEF may be concerned about the geological stability of the mountains or the threat to fragile eco-systems and a depleting forest cover. The Himalayas on the Indian side are also prone to landslides. However, the sources said in most cases kutcha traditional routes exist and it was just a matter of widening them, building bridges over culverts and paving the road to make it motorable.

These pending road projects are in all states that border China like Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. In other case new alignments are also being carved out.

In India, except the roads, the work on other projects like upgrading airfields in the northeast or opening old disused airstrips in Ladakh are going on as per plan.

Out of the 70 roads being built by the government, 20 are in the Arunachal Pradesh area. The road density in Sikkim is only 28.45 km per 100 sq km against the national average of 84 km. Arunachal Pradesh is even worse off, with a road density of just 18.65 km per 100 sq km.

On the other hand, almost no rail link exists even as India is now conducting a survey to link areas like Leh with trains. On the Chinese side, the project for new rail lines will bring Chinese trains up to border with Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, two Indian states that figure prominently on the radar of the Sino-Indian disputes.

The Indian security agencies opine that road and rail projects in China are completed quickly and often ahead of time while in India these face one hurdle after the other.

Sources said the speed of Chinese construction was startling. Citing a few cases, they said infrastructure was right next to the Line of Actual Control.
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
Red tape halts roads along China