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BORDER LOGISTICS India’s building of roads along the China border has been tardy. In seven years, only 16 of the planned 73 projects have seen fruition. Slow clearances and tough terrain are the challenges. China, meanwhile, has built a formidable road and rail network. By Ajay Banerjee Inertia in inter-ministerial coordination, coupled with a sluggish pace of construction and challenges posed by the formidable Himalayas, is critically hindering India’s strategic plans to build a road and rail network along the 4,057-km frontier with China.
Poor access undermines defence |
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No one knows how to fund rail lines
Confusion over crossroads within BRO
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As China builds on border, policy potholes block India India’s building of roads along the China border has been tardy. In seven years, only 16 of the planned 73 projects have seen fruition. Slow clearances and tough terrain are the challenges. China, meanwhile, has built a formidable road and rail network. By Ajay Banerjee
Inertia in inter-ministerial coordination, coupled with a sluggish pace of construction and challenges posed by the formidable Himalayas, is critically hindering India’s strategic plans to build a road and rail network along the 4,057-km frontier with China. A majority of the strategic road projects are several years behind schedule, making a mockery of the 2012 deadline set by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the topmost security-related decision-making body at the Centre headed by the Prime Minister. The realities of the lackadaisical approach cropped up at a meeting on May 20 this year. Defence Minister AK Antony was reportedly aghast at the slow progress on the 73 projects classified as India-China Border Roads (ICBR). He asked the road constructing authority, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), to expedite the work. It was on June 29, 2006, that the CCS had directed the BRO to complete the task in six years (by 2012). The BRO’s record provided to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says as of March 31, 2013, only 16 of the planned 73 roads had been completed on the China frontier. Out of these, six had a length of less than 10 km, which means they are no more than a local connection. After spending huge sums, only 15 per cent of the work has been completed in seven years. In other words, only 527 km of roads, out of the mandated 3,505 km, have been completed. So far, a sum of Rs 5,889 crore has been spent on the 73 roads, which includes formation works, labour cost, etc. Now, a more realistic deadline has been set for 2016 and “beyond-2016”. The CCS decision was a far-reaching strategic policy as it approved the construction of a road network along the entire India-China frontier. It was a reversal of an unwritten code under which the Government of India had deliberately did not built a road network in the Himalayas, fearing a repeat of the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict. New Delhi feared that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, which is much bigger than the Indian Army, could use India’s own road network to rapidly advance down the Himalayas. Stuck in time Forest and wildlife conservation laws in India are a serious hurdle. With the Supreme Court getting strict on violators, the pace of work is sluggish, with clearances pending for more than six years in some cases. In the Himalayas, the peaks have trees and a thriving wildlife. The ecology of the mountains and the rivers originating there affects the lives of billions of people living in the plains. Forest and wildlife clearances therefore turn out to be the biggest stumbling block when the BRO seeks to start a road project. Clearance under the Environment Protection Act is not a big issue for border roads, but forest and wildlife clearances are required under the Forest Conservation Rules and Wildlife Protection Act, respectively. These are part of the Forest Conservation Rules, 2003, that prescribe timelines for clearance of proposals at the state and Central government levels. It takes 90 days to process at the state government level and 60 days at the Central level for border roads along the Indo-China border and projects of national security importance. However, in reality, the timelines are almost never followed. A study within the MoD has found that the average time taken is two-three years, and in certain cases even more than that. The horizontal spread of the Himalayas is a global biodiversity hot spot and hence one rule cannot apply to all parts of the mountain range. The concerns of states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on trees getting cut or the wildlife being affected would not apply to Ladakh. However, in the militarily sensitive eastern Ladakh region, vast areas have been designated as “cold desert wildlife sanctuaries”, holding back roads to key areas which are perpetually in focus along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China. The LAC is the nomenclature for parts of the border of which the alignment is accepted by neither India nor China. “Not a blade of grass grows there and animal life is non-existent,” says a senior Army officer while pointing out at the dichotomy of such a ban. This flat plateau saw major battles in the 1962 war. On a similar terrain and ecology on its side, China has gone ahead with providing all-weather connectivity. In Uttarakhand, there is a ban on stone quarrying in the Ganga catchment area. A way around The two ministries want roads within 50 km of the international border and the LAC to be exempted from controls. There can be no blanket permission or ban on infrastructure construction. “Each project can have an independent biodiversity impact assessment committee of experts which will submit a report to the National Board of Wildlife,” says an official dealing with the issue. “This route was adopted in eastern Ladakh and approvals have started flowing in,” he adds. The MoD filed an interlocutory application in the Supreme Court, seeking exemption of strategic roads from the ambit of wildlife and forest applications, but it was turned down on September 23, 2011, citing “measures taken by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to expedite the clearance being adequate”. Efforts made by the ministry to fast-track clearances have yielded some gains. The MoD is now taking up the matter with nodal officers of the BRO at the project levels as well as the MoEF and state forest departments to ensure regular liaison to expedite clearances. Out of the 99 cases of clearances for the ICBR projects, approvals have been accorded in 79 cases, but the real work of cutting through rock and at heights which have deep valleys and no access points remain. Slow tunnel work The MoD and Army want a total of 17 tunnels at various locations in the Himalayas. The MoD had suggested seven tunnels, for which detailed project reports (DPRs) are under way to examine feasibility. These include one under the 18,300-ft Khardung La, leading to the Siachen Glacier and the sensitive Daulat Beg Oldie in northern Ladakh. In addition to these, the Army has endorsed the construction of 11 more tunnels in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and J&K, which could be taken up subsequently. So far, only one major tunnel is under construction to cut under the Rohtang Pass on the Manali-Sarchu-Leh road, for which the deadline is February 2015. The plans for tunnels are at various stages of approval so that the construction can commence expeditiously. The BRO and other agencies have little expertise in high-altitude tunnelling. Difficult terrain On the Chinese side, the Tibetan plateau is almost treeless. It is a cold desert and, unlike the Himalayas which have high peaks, it is flat, allowing easier movement of material and equipment. The Himalayas are jagged, high and inaccessible with narrow valleys. The Tibetan plateau — at an altitude of 11,000 feet — is cold but gets little or no snowfall. In contrast, the Himalayan passes like the Zoji La, Rohtang and Baralacha in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal receive huge amounts of snow, restricting road access for months and making in difficult to move equipment. Rather, the BRO spends weeks each year just to clear snow from these passes. In the East, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim face the same problems. Also, snow in the Himalayas allows a short working window during the summer months and the remaining time is lost due to weather and shortage of labour. The Defence Ministry has admitted China has a “geographical advantage” along the border. A report of the parliamentary committee in August 2011 quoted the Defence Secretary as saying: “China has been building its infrastructure. They have the advantage of topography because they have the Tibetan Plateau whereas from our side, the terrain and geography are more difficult”. Several spots in the Himalayas can only be reached on foot. Sending material is possible only through helicopters, but the IAF capability of Mi-17 helicopters is stretched. The MoD had toyed with the idea of hiring choppers, but it did not work. As per estimates, the BRO needs an annual lift capability of 3,500 tonne. Each Mi-17 can take up to 2-3 tonnes, depending on the altitude. |
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Poor access undermines defence
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series of Chinese military exercises atop the Tibetan Plateau over the past two years have held out warning signals for India. At least three of these exercises were to practice rapid movement of a large body of troops, equipment, tanks and supplies, backed by fighter planes, to mimic a conflict scenario. All military exercises mimic a war situation. However, for India the red herring in the exercises was the sheer number of troops and pieces of equipment they moved. The speed at which it was done was unprecedented. The importance of the Chinese military exercises was not lost on Indian strategic planners in New Delhi’s South Block. Around September 2012, an assessment was made to study the impact and possible threats for India. Using a network of roads and rail lines, China showed it could rapidly move its troops east to west or vice-versa. Out of the three exercises, the ones in March 2012 and September 2012 were the biggest. In March this year, the China’s State Council published a White Paper titled ‘The Diversified Employment of China’s Armed Forces’, which talked about the rapid movements and said it had extensively practised the move to concentrate troops. “Trans-Military Area Command (MAC) movements have been carried out. In 2012, the Chengdu MAC and Lanzhou MAC carried out the exercise”. Out of a total of seven MACs of China, Chengdu and Lanzhou are the two tasked the Sikkim/Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh frontiers, respectively. In 2012, more than three divisions (some 45,000 troops) were moved along with key equipment, missile launchers, tanks and other paraphernalia. Encumbered movement India, on the other hand, knows it would struggle to rapidly move even one-fifth of that volume of troops and equipment from one theatre of war in the Himalayas to another in the mountains. The Indian reinforcements, if any, will have to come from bases in the plains. During the winter months the reinforcements to places in Ladakh or Arunachal Pradesh will have to use transport planes which have limited capacities — possibly one tank or 200 troops can be sent at a time. The addition of C-130-J and the June-slated induction of the C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft will augment the capacity of the existing fleet of Russian-built IL-76. Moving reinforcements by road could take three or four days to reach a spot, whereas China can do it in a day due to the excellent roads. A serving Army officer, who has worked in a key position in the Himalayas, said, “Even in summer if we use roads to move a brigade (some 4,500 men) as reinforcement it could take a week. In winter, it would be impossible, unless the snow is cleared from the high passes”. It was in view of this that the demand for strategic rail lines was being fast-tracked, and there was also a push to build smooth road access to remote valleys, the officer added. Dr Rajeshwari Rajgopalan, senior research fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank, Observer Research Foundation, in her assessment of the relatively lower level of infrastructure on the Indian side, said: “India could face military setbacks in case of a limited conflict, as China can concentrate large number of forces within a few days at a particular spot, beating any defence”. An internal assessment by the armed forces reads: “Chinese infrastructure is right at the borders, while ours is some 50-70 km short of it.” Pointing to the new thrust of the Chinese to build oil pipelines on the Tibetan plateau, Dr Rajgopalan says: “Logistics of fuel supply to Chinese military vehicles will be taken care of by this”. Fair-weather logistics Conversely, India, even during normal times, struggles to maintain supplies. The forward areas in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh have to stock everything for six months as the mountain passes become inaccessible in winter. In an emergency, supplies and troops are moved by aircraft or helicopters. As per the Indian assessment, the railway lines in Tibet will allow China to relocate some 30 divisions (approximately 4.5 lakh men) within a month to station them at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India. Between the two MACs of Lanzhou and Chengdu, the Chinese PLA has a total of nine divisions (1.35 lakh troops) besides five mechanised brigades that posses tanks and infantry combat vehicles. The Indian Army has eight divisions (1.2 lakh) facing China — spread across Ladakh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. However, the handicap is lies in moving tanks and sending in reinforcements from the plains. The Chinese, on the other hand, can move around any number of troops in these MACs using its infrastructure to concentrate a large number of troops in a small area to attack and overcome Indian positions at a particular point.
— AB |
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No one knows how to fund rail lines
India’s plans to construct 10 rail tracks in the mighty Himalayas and another four in the plains along the sensitive western border are locked in files shuttling between the ministries of Defence, Finance, Railways and the Planning Commission. Though it will be the Railways which will be responsible for completing the Rs 78,000 crore project, the allocation of funds for the strategic lines is stuck in bureaucratic hurdles. The Railways says it has no funds for such a big project. The Ministry of Defence, which has indentified these tracks as ‘high-priority’, wants the Planning Commission to take up the matter of funds and allocate money for the ‘project of national importance’. The troubles do not end there. Since the said outlay of defence is part of the non-Plan budget, the Defence Ministry cannot be provided an outlay from the Planning Commission! More importantly, it remains to be seen how India will find the resources to fund the project that not only needs big money, it also path-breaking tunneling technology. Never before has India laid railway lines in such high mountains. The British-built railway lines in the Himalayas terminate at an altitude of some 6,500 feet in Shimla and Darjeeling. Ten strategic lines are being planned in the Himalayas. Some of these will touch higher elevations than ever before - Leh is at an altitude of 11,000 feet while Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh is at 10,000 feet. Reaching there by rail means tunnelling under one of the highest elevations in the Himalayas. Other planned lines in Uttarakhand and North-East face similar challenges. At certain points there is no road to send in the equipment required. Frustration In May 2012, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence expressed shock at the way red tape was holding back the construction of strategic railway lines in the Himalayas. A year later, there has been some movement. Details of meetings confirm that surveys charting the best possible route on the basis of terrain, nearest road head, etc, have been completed on 11 of the routes. In his budget speech in February this year, the now ousted Railway Minister Pawan Bansal had mentioned that a survey would be conducted to have a Srinagar-Kargil-Leh line. Bansal also said: “I will pursue the approval of a Bilaspur-Manali-Leh line as a project of national importance. Incidentally, these happen to be on two separate road axes to reach the sensitive Ladakh region in Jammu and Kashmir and parts of Himachal that abut China. At present, the nearest railheads to access the China frontier are Shimla and Darjeeling, which are of no use being narrow-gauge lines and incapable of carrying any heavy load. Uttarakhand, Dehradun, Rishikesh and Kathgodam are thus the available railheads in the northern foothills and Udalgiri, Jonai and Tinsukhia provide the closest access to Arunachal Pradesh. These railheads are hundreds of kilometres from the frontier. In contrast, China has a railway line cutting across the Tibetan Plateau. Soon that will link east to west, enabling its troops to reach any location in only 8-10 hours. These arteries can also be used to replenish supplies within hours in case of a conflict. Within the Indian Army and MoD, it is well documented as to how railway lines will benefit movement of troops and equipment under all weather conditions and sustenance of logistics. Defence Minister AK Antony, speaking in Parliament on March 13 this year, had described these proposed lines saying, “The plans for strategic railway lines have been drawn up by the Services based on the inputs from the operational commands and validated from an operational and logistics perspective”.
— AB
The proposed rail lines In the Himalayas Murkongselek-Pasighat-Tezu-Parasuramkund-Rupai (Arunachal Pradesh) Missamari-Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh) North Lakhimpur-Along-Silapathar (Assam-Arunachal
Pradesh) Pathankot-Leh (Punjab-Himachal Pradesh-Ladakh) Srinagar-Kargil-Leh (J&K) Jammu-Akhnoor-Poonch (J&K) Tanakpur-Bageshwar (Uttarakhand) Dehradun-Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand) Rishikesh-Karanprayag-Chamoli (Uttarakhand) Tanakpur-Jauljibi (Uttarakhand) Along the western front Anupgarh-Chattargarh-Motigarh-Bikaner (Rajasthan) Jodhpur-Agolai-Shergarh-Phalsund (Rajasthan) Patti-Ferozpur (Punjab) Jodhpur-Jaisalmer (doubling; Rajasthan) |
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Confusion over crossroads within BRO
There’s a fight within the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). With a litany of complaints, a section of employees are demanding their rights. Matters that should have been sorted out at the administrative level have been left to the court to decide. Suggestions have even been made to split the BRO into two parts — one run by the Army and the other by civilian engineers. Defence Minister AK Antony has tasked his junior, Minister of State (MoS) for Defence Jitendra Singh, to address the human resource issues. The Secretary of the Border Roads Development Board (BRDB) is from the IAS while its Chairman is the MoS, Defence. Funds are embedded in the budget of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The Director-General Border Roads (DGBR) is a Lt-General rank officer while the General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF) comprises civilian engineers who wear khaki uniform and are covered under the Army Act. They are recruited through an examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. The DGBR is the executive head of GREF. Amid this cross-holding lies the dispute. The civilian staff, which forms 95 per cent of the work force, has petitioned the MoD saying the post of DGBR should be opened to civilian engineers also and not restricted to the Army alone. Out of the BRO’s authorised strength of 42,646 employees, some 3,000 are from the Army. In April this year, the issue of rotation policy for postings has been on the forefront. Since GREF engineers are covered under the Army Act, which prohibits formation of any association or union, their wives have formed the GREF Employees Wives Welfare Association. This body met the MoS, Defence, with a memorandum on April 25 and suggested “dividing the organisation in two different entities” — one run by the Army and the other by GREF. The memorandum alleged that orders regarding the implementation of a rotation policy had been violated. In 2010, the MoD issued orders that civilian engineers and Army officers will alternately command GREF projects and the GREF Centre. The memorandum cited the names of a few Army officers who had been posted bypassing the “rotational policy”. It went on to allege that Army officers who had not been given a “substantive rank” of Brigadier were being posted as Chief Engineers in GREF. “This was against the advice of the Defence Secretary, asking not to post local rank Brigadiers against the post of GREF Chief Engineers,” it said. A matter is pending in court questioning the very continuation of Army officers in the BRO. At a closed-door meeting in January 2010, Lt-Gen MC Bhadani, then DGBR, had stated: “The BRO men are too stressed, working their entire career in very difficult areas and cut away from their families”. Three years later nothing has changed.
— AB
The builders on border
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The MoD and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) are now working to bring about a legal provision that will speed up road construction by exempting border infrastructure from all relevant Acts of forest and wildlife. The first tentative draft of the Strategic Border Infrastructure (Development) Bill, 2011, with comments of the stakeholders concerned, was sent by the MHA to the Ministry of Law and Justice, which brought out the second working draft of the Bill. “The draft has been examined by the MHA and it is being fine-tuned,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence said in its report in the House on April 29, adding “the delay in forest and wildlife clearances has been an impediment”.
