Infrastructure along India-China border being enhanced at "galloping pace": ITBP DG

Greater Noida: Asserting that enhancement of border infrastructure along China is a “thrust area”, the ITBP chief said on Monday that it is being done at a “galloping pace” by having new border posts, vehicles, weaponry and surveillance gadgets. Giving this information at a press conference to mark the 55th Raising Day of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), its Director General Krishna Chaudhary also said transgressions by Chinese PLA forces at the border is going down steadily. ITBP is tasked with guarding the 3,488-km long Sino-India border. He, however, declined to give the exact number of such incidents in the past. Official figures said while in 2015 about 500 transgressions were reported along the border, it went down to 350 last year and this year about 200 such violations have taken place till now. “All I can say is that these incidents of transgressions take place due to the difference of perception. This is a perceptional difference of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).” [caption id=“attachment_3069672” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Asked about the developments being witnessed on the other side of the border, Chaudhary said, “infrastructure on that side has grown tremendously.” “We were a little slow to start in the growth of infrastructure but now we are doing it at a galloping pace. We are getting new border posts, vehicles, weaponry and surveillance gadgets. We are very fast catching up,” he said after reviewing the ceremonial parade of the paramilitary force at its base. The DG added that enhancement of border infrastructure along China is a “thrust area” for the government and the force even as troop levels have been enhanced by the ITBP at 116 BoPs in the recent past. Chaudhary said a total of 172 new Border out Posts (BoPs), out of the total 176, have been raised on this border while work has been “fast paced” to build border roads in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, that share their borders with China. “We had started work on 27 roads and I can tell you that on eight of these, work has been completed,” he said. The ITBP chief said government sanctions have also been received for converting/creating 50 high-altitude BoPs on this icy border as “composite” ones which will have a central heating and 24X7 supply of liquid water for troops manning this arduous frontier which is marred by vagaries of sub-zero temperatures and blizzards.