Concerned over better Chinese infrastructure across the line of Actual Control (lAC), the Government has asked all the border States to set up single window system to resolve issues like land acquisition and forest clearance for building roads.
Chief Secretaries of these States have been asked to constitute empowered committees under their chairmanship with Secretaries of concerned departments as members to address these issues speedily, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley informed Parliament last week.
land acquisition and environment clearance are the biggest hurdles in developing road infrastructure in all the states facing China which has built all weather roads along the 4,000 km long lAC besides more than 10 air fields in Tibet and 5,000 km of rail line there.
This helps China in providing logistical support to its troops guarding the lAC whereas India is far behind and in many areas soldiers have to trek for three to four days from the nearest road head to reach their posts on the front.
Nearly 75 roads were identified as strategically important some years back in all the border states including Arunachal Pradesh and ladakh region in Kashmir but little progress has taken place on ground due to problems like land acquisition and forest clearance.
Soon after coming to power, the NDA Government did away with environment clearance for building roads by the Defence Ministry in a radius of 100 kms from the lAC and informed Parliament that State Governments were asked to establish single window system. These single window cells will be at district, State and Ministry of environment and forest level for quick decision making, Jaitley said in the lok Sabha.
Besides urging chief secretaries to set up empowered committees, the Government was also making efforts to address problems faced by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) which builds roads in inaccessible areas, including border States.
Given rugged terrain, it is difficult to deploy heavy road building machinery and the Defence Ministry has ensured that IAF helicopters are used for airlifting the machinery. Jaitley said air effort availability has been streamlined through close co-ordination with the IAF.