One reason for inordinate delay in constructing some strategic and crucial roads along the border with China has been the intricate rules of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests whose clearance is a pre-requisite for undertaking building of any road linking with the border. The Ministry of Defence is rightly unhappy with the slow progress in building the roads along the border with China. Actually, the Chinese have since completed the task of bringing roads and railways to the farthest post on their side along the border with India. We are lagging behind owing to our negligence as well as our intricate rules. Now the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has invoked Section 2 of Forests Conservation Act to allow use of forest land by the BRO for construction/widening of the roads within 100 kilometers aerial distance from the LAC. Armed with this Section of the Act, now a large number of road projects right up to the LAC along China border in five States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, will now be taken in hand as desired by the Defence Ministry. The projects are about building of new roads and widening the existing ones as well. Out of 198 Border Road Projects, 78 fall in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Centre has already sanctioned funds for the construction of this infrastructure and sources have confirmed that funding is no problem.
With the green signal received from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, we expect that the Border Roads Organization will take up the entire gamut of road construction projects in all the five Border States and bring these to completion within shortest possible time.
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