India’s efforts totake its railway network close to China border is caught up in red tape for the last two years while China has taken its railway link to Tibet.
Defence Minister A K Antony on Tuesday decided to approach the Planning Commission to declare 14 railway lines close to the Sino-Indian border as “strategic” so that survey and construction could be taken up immediately.These 14 lines – down from the original list of 28 – were declared strategic by the Defence Ministry way back in 2010 and high-level panels were set up to accelerate the construction. The Railway Ministry was asked to undertake the survey in August 2010 for assessing technical feasibility and cost.
Survey work was undertaken in three strategic railway lines in the North East – 248-km North Lakhimpur-Along-Silapathar line; 140-km Missamari-Tawang line and 95-km Murkongselek-Pasighat-Rupai line. Antony on Tuesday also approved recruiting more military engineers for speeding up infrastructure development and purchasing equipment for Special Forces directly through a high-level panel, headed by the Army vice-chief.An empowered committee headed by Defence Secretary has been set up to process the infrastructure development projects in the North East and monitor the progress.
The Defence Minister reviewed the Army procurement and infrastructure development along with the top officials from the Defence Ministry and Army, after Army Chief Gen V K Singh disclosed the poor preparedness level of the Army in his ‘secret’ letter to the Prime Minister.
Antony sanctioned raising one regiment of Brahmos supersonic missile and expressed satisfaction on the progress made so far in acquisition of 155 mm/39 calibre ultra light weight howitzer from the USA. A panel will be created to look into Army's need of having a full-fledged aviation wing rather than depending on the Indian Air Force (IAF) for helicopter support.