‘Red tape delayed road building near India-China border’
By IANSWednesday, November 10, 2010
NEW DELHI - The government Wednesday said procedural hassles delayed the construction of over 800 km of roads along the frontiers with China, which is building huge infrastructure on its side of the border.
“The government has decided to undertake phase-wise construction of 27 roads totalling 804 km in the border areas along the India-China border,” Minister of State for Home Mullappally Ramachandran said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
He said the roads were being laid in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh for the operational requirements of the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
The minister said these were strategic border roads, located in a very high altitude area on the India-China boundary.
He said some topographical problems were coming in the way of laying the roads as some areas fall in reserve forests and wildlife sanctuaries.
“Therefore, the long process of getting statutory environmental clearances and the approval of the Supreme Court had to be undertaken. The procedural requirements were time consuming and therefore, the expenditure was not as per expectations in the initial two years of the scheme (2006-07 and 2007-08).”
He said since the issues have been resolved, the process of road construction has commenced.
