The Indian Air Force on Friday made history by landing its frontline fighter plane SU-30 in the upgraded Advanced landing Ground (AlG) at Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh. This is the first time that an Indian fighter plane made operational sorties in the strategically-important border State that shares its boundary with China.
Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju inaugurated the AlG at Pasighat along with Eastern Command chief Air Marshal C Hari Kumar. He termed the day as historic considering the importance of the country’s eastern border with its neighbour.
This AlG is a major step to bolster strategic reach of the IAF on the Eastern front to counter China as this airfield can handle all flying operations including fighter jets, heavy transport planes and helicopters.
A SU-30 jet, the frontline plane landed and took off at Pasighat to highlight these capabilities.
The border State sharing the line of Actual Control (lAC) with China has five AlGs, but Pasighat is the first one capable of handling all sorts of flying operations. It can now maintain logistical lines for the forward posts of the Army and paramilitary. But its main task will be defending the Indian skies in that region. Besides SU-30, Jaguars and Mirage fighter jets, transport planes like C-17 and An-32, and medium lift C-130 Js can now land there.
Incidentally, China has at least ten fully-operational airfields in the Tibetan plateau across the lAC besides all-weather roads right up to the border. Moreover, China has built more than 10,000 km of rail network in the plateau to ensure year-round logistical support to its armed forces deployed on the lAC.
The IAF has identified at least 35 airfields in the North-East for rapid modernisation to handle all types of aircraft and the project is expected to be over by the end of 2018.
India woefully lacks road network in all the States bordering China and only 23 out of 73 roads identified as strategic are complete despite ten years of work. India and China share nearly 4,000 km of lAC stretching from ladakh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. At present, our soldiers have to march for more than four to five days from the nearest road head to reach their forward locations in Arunachal Pradesh. Similarly, 14 strategic rail projects in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and North-East to meet the Chinese challenge are still at the drawing board stage.
The nod to upgrade the Pasighat AlG from part-grass and part-concrete to a full-fledged airfield was given in 2010 at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore. The new runway surface and other infrastructure that has been built is similar to the other upgraded AlGs in the eastern region and ladakh in the west. Replete with facilities such as aprons for ground manoeuvering, Air Traffic Control Tower, perimeter road and a security wall, the AlG will facilitate operations of fixed wing aircraft as well as helicopters of both civil and military operators.
Moreover, this airfield will facilitate air connectivity with the rest of the country and give a huge fillip to tourism in the State. The Airport Authority of India (AAI) is in the process of setting up a civil terminal, the construction of which has yet to commence.
Meanwhile, the AlGs at Walong, Ziro, Along and Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh have since been upgraded and are operational now. Two AlGs at Tuting and Tawang are expected to be ready by the year-end, while the AlG at Vijaynagar would undertake for reconstruction as soon as the road connectivity between Miao and Vijaynagar is restored.