India steps up Border Infrastructure Development to counter China

In its quest to match the huge border infrastructure gap with China, India has launched 90 projects. These projects include the crucial Nechiphu tunnel on the road to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, two revamped airfields in West Bengal, two helipads, 22 roads and 63 bridges. They were formally inaugurated by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Additionally, he laid the foundation stone for the upgrade of the critical Nyoma advance landing airfield’s ground and inaugurated the 423-metre Devak bridge built by the Border Roads Organization (BRO) in Jammu. The Rs 230 crore upgrade work at the Nyoma ALG, located at an altitude of over 13,400-feet, which includes extending and strengthening the existing airstrip into a 2.7-km “rigid pavement” runway for all types of fixed-wing aircraft for “defensive as well as offensive operations'', is expected to be completed by mid-2025. These 90 new infrastructure projects, built by BRO at a cost of Rs 2,941 crore, are spread across 11 states and UTs, including 36 in Arunachal, 26 in Ladakh and 11 in J&K. They follow the completion of 103 projects worth about Rs 2,900 crore in 2022, and 102 projects costing over Rs 2,200 crore in 2021.