Reports of China building and strengthening its existing infrastructure in Tibet continue to flow in regularly. The latest is that China is building 24 new projects along its side of the Brahmaputra river. While China has constructed a vast network of roads, tunnels, railways and airfields that enable mass rapid movement of troops to the border, the picture on the Indian side continues to be dismal, which is fraught with strategic and tactical disadvantages 
Infrastructure cauldron on the eastern frontierMaj Gen Raj Mehta (Retd)

FOR A ROAD AHEAD: A Border Roads Organisation bulldozer clears a motorable track in the forward areas of Arunachal Pradesh. The functioning of the organisation has come under critical review by a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence

Defence Minister A.K. Anthony was reportedly shocked when, in December 2007, he personally saw the terrible state of the Nathu La axis in Sikkim vis-à-vis the swish Chinese infrastructure across. The traveller today experiences a sickening feeling of déjà vu. Our border infrastructure is as somnolent as it was in 2007. The strategic 165 km long National Highway 31-A linking Siliguri through Gangtok in Sikkim to the Indo-Chinese border at Nathu La (14,300 feet) still looks bombed out, devastated and gutted. Blocked by landslides, ridden with pot-holed patches and untidily strewn road-widening activity, a one-way journey on this Border Roads Organisation (BRO) road, Sikkim's lifeline, takes over eight backbreaking hours. NH-31A truly represents the dismal state of border infrastructure in the northeastern region, reflected accurately by the state of the equally strategic NH-31 linking Siliguri to the "seven sisters".
No better proof of government apathy is more evident than from the 8th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence tabled in August 2010. Titled Construction of Roads in the Border Areas of the Country, it savagely indicts the "casual attitude" of the Ministry of Defence. One excerpt reads: "It is truly mind-boggling that the Defence Ministry has no data on the roads being made by neighbouring countries in the border areas… Then there is the BRO, which conveniently deflects the question on the slow pace of construction of roads in border areas due to "historical" reasons. Really, did the Government of India actually believe till two years ago… that we should not make roads as near to the border as possible....incomprehensible and inconceivable".
Commenting on the Ministry's two Long Term Perspective Plans (LTTP-I and LTTP-II) for augmenting border roads, the Committee notes, "out of the 277 roads of the length of 13,100 km to be built till 2012, only 29 are complete and work is in progress on 168 other roads. No work has yet started in respect of 80 roads measuring 2,624 Km." The Committee has pulled up the BRO for its inexplicable "sense of complacency".
It is tragic that the visionary letter that then Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, wrote to Nehru on November 7, 1950 is, 60 years later, an eloquent strategic statement which has not been acted upon. Patel had cautioned Nehru with prescience that a long-term view was needed for "improvement of our communication, road, rail, air and wireless, in border areas and frontier outposts". Nehru never responded, but left as legacy, the incomprehensible ostrich policy of not developing our border areas.
Compare this with the Chinese approach. In 1950, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) entered Tibet with two slogans: "Development", and "Strengthening the Borders". These remain constant even in 2010. China has created and upgraded the entire spectrum of infrastructure in Tibet — from railways to roads, power projects, cities, airports, military and missile bases. With Lhasa connected by rail, the network is being extended to Nepal and to the Indo-Chinese border at Shigatse, north of Chumbi Valley and Tsona, north of Tawang. Pan-Asian rail links to Myanmar, Indo-China and Singapore are also proposed. This Chinese projection of national interest to revive, upgrade and promote Chinese influence, trade and commerce, stabilise unsettled areas as well as project its military muscle is neither unfair nor unwarranted.
Indian strategic thinkers are driven by the fear of Chinese encirclement of India by their "string of pearls" strategy and by the Sino-Pak collusion in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. These developments could, however, also be fallouts of Chinese economic expansion and the need to develop China equitably, but with a military subtext.
India in her national interest has also started looking towards East Asia. Implementation of Sardar Patel's advice has fitfully started, with accretion in military manpower, news of Agni missile sites being reconnoitered and activation and upgradation of airfields at Nyoma, Fukche and Daulat Beg Oldi, besides moving some top line aircraft to Tezpur.
Serious problems however remain unaddressed. Land acquisition, bureaucratic red tape, court cases, lack of cooperation at functional and policy making levels between departments, agencies, statutory bodies, state governments and ministries hold implementation hostage. Progress is also held up by sluggish environmental and forest clearances at the centre and state levels, railway clearances for rail over/under bridges, shifting of utilities - electricity and water pipelines, sewers, telecom cables and law and order problems.
Absence of a firm apex and functional leadership, the near total absence of modern processes, systems, and of performance and maintenance audit of BRO by local field Army commanders also seriously inhibits progress as the BRO is answerable only to its controlling Ministry of Surface Transport and the Ministry of Defence. Another issue is the multiplicity of other construction agencies answering to different ministries. The Government's Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in the North East (SARDP-NE) covering 9,740 kms is under the Ministry of Surface Transport and has 10 executing agencies. The Border Area Development Programme (BADP) under the Ministry of Home Affairs has five executing agencies. Thus, 15 agencies and 10 ministries are involved in border infrastructure leading to chaos and total lack of construction synergy.
The BRO, once the cynosure of all eyes, today has a huge backlog. Apart from its serious road construction slippages, BRO needs 20 years to complete the 36,000 meters of already accepted bridging work. Seriously understaffed and under-equipped, it functions in a technology/management time warp. Forced to resort to "casual labour" to cut costs, devoid of dedicated airlift (the IAF simply can't cope), with only a handful of its officers trained abroad in cutting-edge construction practices, this once world class organisation is not only in serious decline but is operating with its hands tied in archaic procedures and unimaginative financial norms. Mindless bureaucratic resistance to hiring retired Sappers (officers and men) and General Reserve Engineering Force personnel, and, pitiably, undertaking construction activities in Maharashtra and Chattisgarh that have nothing to do with border infrastructure, add to its woes.
What needs to be done is quite clear. An inter-ministerial Border Infrastructure Team (BIT) under the Prime Minister's Office must be urgently set up to implement the infrastructure road map with time bound and fast track sanctions. The Defence ministry should be nominated as the sole ministry dealing with the BRO's functioning, and accountability established through senior field formation commanders. Issues such as getting reputed national and international infrastructure agencies involved in construction, hiring of retired engineer personnel, training key BRO personnel abroad, dedicated airlift, induction of new technology, remote sensing, bringing in drinking water, education, health, power, telecommunications, commerce and connectivity must be part of the holistic vision that will drive the BIT's functioning and accountability.
The writer has served in Sikkim
 
 source: The Tribune