government ramping up border infrastructure

(MainsGS3:Security challenges and their management in border areas - linkages of organized crime with terrorism.)

Context:

• During the parliamentary session External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar released details of the government’s projects on border infrastructure and connectivity.

Multi-pronged approach:

• An official document released, highlighted a multi-pronged approach — improving connectivity to the LAC through roads, bridges and tunnels, improving cross-border connectivity to neighbouring countries via highways, bridges, inland waterways, railroads, electricity lines and fuel pipelines.
• Further modernising and constructing integrated check posts (ICPs) at all the border crossings to smooth trade, and funding and constructing infrastructure projects in neighbouring countries.
• The government’s projects on border infrastructure and connectivity focused on initiatives in the north and east along India’s 3,488 km border with China (Line of Actual Control or LAC).
• These projects include ramping up infrastructure on the Indian side in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as projects connecting India to “friendly” neighbouring states such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar.

Rapid development of infrastructure:

• Mr. Jaishankar said the Modi government has “focused on rapid development of infrastructure along the Northern Borders with China for obvious strategic reasons”. 
• This was a reference to successive skirmishes with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in Chumar in 2014, Doklam in 2017 and the ongoing standoff along the entire LAC since April 2020 when the Chinese army amassed troops along the border, which resulted in the Galwan clashes, the first such violent incident in 45 years.
• The government also sought to allay concerns in neighbouring countries in light of the recent drop in share value and credit ratings of the Adani Group that has been highlighted internationally as the group involves in number of projects, including electricity with Bangladesh and Nepal, ports in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, as well as renewable energy projects in the region. 

Neighborhood projects:

• The report lists dozens of projects in the neighbourhood that have been planned, financed or constructed in which some involve major outlays like the railway links to Nepal and Bangladesh, the Mahakali motorable bridge and the Maitri Setu between Tripura and Bangladesh, the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) which includes a 158 km waterway, the Sittwe port project and road to Mizoram. 
• It also speaks of “South Asia’s first cross-border petroleum products pipeline” between Motihari in India and Amlekhgunj in Nepal, another High Speed Diesel pipeline with Bangladesh that will reduce petrol prices and road congestion, and a Bhutanese dry port in Pasakha bordering West Bengal being developed under an Indian government grant.