Soldiers on Zoji-la, a mountain pass north of Srinagar

New Delhi, May 6: India is sprucing up its frontier with China by taking up a massive four-year project to connect villages, military posts and towns strung on the border across the Himalayas from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO), the military road builder, has asked for Rs 2,140 crore this year for the project to be completed by 2012.

The identification of the connections — some of the roads will be rebuilt while others will be newly laid — began after the Centre reversed its decision in 2006 to not upgrade links along the still-disputed border with China.

Since 1962, the central policy pursued by successive governments, but rarely spelt out, has been to allow the connections across the Himalayas with China to degenerate. That was the outcome of a threat perception that it would make it easier for supposedly stronger Chinese forces to roll down to India in the event of hostilities.

The first effect of the reversal of the policy, however, was felt in July 2006 when India and China agreed to start limited border trade through Nathu-la in Sikkim. Now, the Centre has asked the BRO to build or rebuild 71 roads.

The project involves laying fresh roads, double-laning and/or black-topping existing roads and repairing bridges in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and, most significantly, in Arunachal.

Of the links for which feasibility studies have been done, 27 are in Arunachal, the director-general of the BRO, Lt General A.K. Nanda, said today.

Arunachal is disputed by China, which does not recognise it as Indian territory. He said nine roads were to be completed this year. Nanda confirmed that the Centre had sanctioned raising of additional units and the BRO would be recruiting more than 5,000 personnel, specifically for the projects on the India-China border.

The BRO’s Project Hirak for building roads through Naxalite-influenced districts in central India (Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh) was being steadily wound down with no new resources being allocated to it. However, Project Hirak is also monitored by the anti-Naxalite cell of the Union home ministry and its future would be determined in consultation with that body.

Central allocations for the BRO have recorded a steady increase since 2005-06 when it was granted Rs 1,638 crore. Last year, the amount was raised to Rs 2,686 crore. A special fund of Rs 550 crore was also created for the China border roads programme.

The decision to upgrade the roads on the China frontier is the result of a combination of factors — a lowering of threat perception, a confidence in the Indian military that is inducting newer and better equipment and also a look-east policy that the Manmohan Singh government favours by encouraging trade through disputed borders.

India has also taken stock of the active road and railway building activity on the Chinese side in Tibet. Defence minister A.K. Antony has himself admitted during visits to Sikkim and Arunchal that China’s border networks were better.

However, that in itself is not worrisome enough for the Indian establishment to raise its threat perception because India’s military believes it has alternative plans if the Chinese were to be able to deploy troops faster than they could earlier.

Nanda said the BRO was also resurfacing a 160km road in Myanmar from Tamu to Kalva. Its project in Afghanistan — the 219km Zaranj-Delaram Road, where BRO personnel have been attacked and killed by the Taliban — was “80 percent complete”.

“We expect to pull out of Afghanistan around July-August this year,” Nanda said. He admitted that the Taliban threat was very real.

Although India had sent 400 Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel for an inner security cordon for the BRO staffers, there were still worries that the 1,400 local police that the Afghan government had arranged for “could be infiltrated”.