BRO DG Reveals Extensive Border Infrastructure Development In India-China Region

BRO Director General Lt. General Rajeev Chaudhry said on Sunday that India has done a lot of building near the China border over the past three years. The DG was here to check on the progress of building what is said to be the world’s biggest 3D-printed campus, an air dispatch unit for the Border Roads Organisation (BRO).

Chaudhry said that the Indian government is giving the BRO its full backing for infrastructure development projects by giving it more money and new technology.

He also said that India’s government has “increased our budget by 100% in the last two years.”

When asked if China is building a lot of infrastructure near India’s borders, the DG said that the BRO and other agencies have been doing a lot of building work at the China border over the past three years.

The DG said that in the last few years, around 300 BRO projects worth Rs 8,000 crore were finished.

“In the last three years, we built and gave to the country 295 road projects, bridges, tunnels, and airfields,” Chaudhry said.

“In four months, we’ll have finished 60 more projects, and the speed of our work has picked up,” he said.

The DG said that the BRO was building roads with steel slag, which is a waste result of making steel, and plastic.

“Today, the BRO works at a pretty fast pace, and the government is fully behind it, whether it’s with money, machines, new technology, or making things easier. You can be sure that we will be ahead of China in four or five years,” he said.

The DG said that the last government didn’t want to build roads close to the Line of Actual Control.

In 2008, A. K. Antony, who was the Defense Minister at the time, said in Parliament that China could use the same roads against India.

“But now, the government has a different way of thought. “Our projects are getting a lot of attention,” he said.

Chaudhry said that only two tunnels were built in 60 years, but that four tunnels have been built in the last three years.

“We are working on 10 tunnels right now, and they will be done by next year. We also have plans for eight more tunnels,” he said, emphasizing that tunnels are the most important part of fast, all-weather connection.

He said that the BRO was using new methods and machines to clear snow from roads in high-altitude areas like Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Tawang, and other places. This was done to cut down on the time that roads had to be closed.

Chaudhry said that the Zoji La pass used to be closed for six months starting in October because of snow.

In the last three years, the time it takes to close has gone down, he said.

The DG said that building roads was not just for the security services.

He said that a road is the backbone of growth and that this helps a lot with the social and economic development of people who live in remote villages and hard-to-reach areas.

The DG said that one of the BRO’s projects was building the world’s highest motorable road at Demchok, which is 19,000 feet above sea level.

Chaudhry said that we started digging a tunnel at Hanle, which is at 15,000 feet, almost 40 days ago.

He also said that all roads are higher than the base camps of Mount Everest.