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Panel Slams Govt for Not Keeping Pace With China

VeeraBahadur

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A Parliamentary panel today slammed the government for the "slow pace" in matching China in border infrastructure and rejected Defence Ministry's claim that development there was as per India's threat perception.

The Standing Committee on Defence also came down heavily on the Defence Ministry for failing to give a "direct" response to it on "pin pointed" query regarding difficulties faced by India due to poor network of road, rail, and airports and helipads.

The report said the threats perceived by India are not only due to conventional and modern threats but is also due to "slow pace in keeping herself abreast of the technological and infrastructural advancement in comparison to our territorial neighbours, especially China..."

The report dealt with threat perception and preparedness of the forces including incursion on borders, coordination mechanism with the central armed police forces and border connectivity through road, rail and air.

The report tabled in Parliament said substantial improvement and achieving stipulated targets within a time frame and avoiding cost escalations were required with regard to borders.

It also flagged the issue of non-demarcation of Line of Actual Control, limited rail, road and air connectivity, ambivalent claims in defence production, inadequate delivery in research and development and oversight mechanism on the part of administrative departments.

"It is shocking to note that only one road out of 27 ITBP roads is complete and as many as 11 roads are behind schedule and not even the detailed project reports (DPRs) have been finalised," the report said.

Referring to the "usual handicaps" such as lack of environmental clearance and problems in land acquisitions, the Committee has recommended setting up a "high level" task force of senior-most officers of the Defence, Home and Railways Ministries to monitor progress on land connectivity to borders on a monthly basis and submit the shortcomings.

"The Committee is cautiously optimistic as to what would happen to our nation in case of any eventuality such as war specially when our side has a very dismal network of roads as well as rail connections which could be effective in mobilising man and machine," the report said.

The panel noted that the Home Ministry was "candid" in its admission before it that lack of development on the Indian side is in sharp contrast to infrastructure development on the Chinese side.

Referring to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) projects, the report said, "A sorry figure depicts that out of eight BRO projects along the Sino-India border, none is 100 per cent complete."

The panel also recommended that there should be a uniformity of command and enhanced interdependency between all the central police forces deployed on the international borders.

"They should be trained on the lines of the Army in order to enable them to enhance their operational capabilities," it said.

Panel Slams Govt for Not Keeping Pace With China

Lo, behold the achievements of Antony's tenure
 
the time is wasted in mostly administrative procedures and processes. BRO can complete it in 1 year but when allocation of tenders for buying building material is called, there is lot of delay.
 

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