Defense Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday formally opened 44 bridges built by the army’s Border Roads Organization, or BRO, delivering what the government described as an unprecedented move. The 44 are among the 102 bridges the BRO is building. These bridges are designed to withstand the movement of the heaviest battle tanks in India.
An official said 30 of the 44 bridges commissioned on Monday fell en route to the Royal Line of Control from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.
These are class 70 bridges; technicalese for bridges that can support the weight of 70 tons vehicles.
India’s heaviest battle tank, Arjun, weighs about 60 tons. The T-90 Bhishma tanks that were moved to locations in the East Ladakh sector after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army signaled its reluctance to step back from the Royal Line of Control weigh around 45 tons.
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These bridges would improve connectivity and allow faster development of troops and support elements that would greatly enhance the ability of the armed forces to respond to any situation throughout LAC.
The government had previously doubled the BRO’s annual goals of building 102 bridges this year from an annual average of 50 bridges.
India needs to catch up with China, which has invested heavily in increasing border infrastructure for decades. “We had already wasted too much time and we couldn’t allow a business approach as usual,” said a BRO official, referring to the decision made by previous governments not to upgrade border infrastructure.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had alluded to this decision when he opened the Atal tunnel earlier this month, blaming previous governments for their mistaken priorities and lack of political will to focus on border roads along the border with China.
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Prime Minister Modi, since taking office after a landslide victory in 2014, had focused on strengthening infrastructure along the India-China border.
It is a reflection of the strong momentum of the government in this context that the annual budget of the BRO, which ranged from Rs 3,300 crore to Rs 46.00 crore in 2008-2016, saw a substantial increase and is pegged at more than Rs 11,000 crore in 2020 -21, said an official statement.
At Monday’s event to formally open the 44 bridges, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh praised the BRO and its boss, Lt. Gen. Harpal Singh, for meeting their targets on the ground and in the most hostile weather conditions.
Lt. Gen. Harpal Singh told the BRO that the 44 bridges commissioned on Monday are in addition to the 10 bridges completed earlier in the year. Lt Gen Singh said the new round of 44 bridges is located in Jammu and Kashmir (10), Ladakh (8), Himachal Pradesh (2), Punjab (4), Uttarakhand (8), Arunachal Pradesh (8) and Sikkim (4). ).
“These multi-span bridges, built by BRO, ranging from 30 meters to 484 meters are of strategic importance and have been designed to facilitate the movement of heavy civil and military traffic in border areas,” he said, underlining that some of these bridges They were in places that made building a 30 meter long bridge much more difficult than building a 1000 meter long bridge.
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