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Indian Army’s Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has built a new route through which its soldiers can enter the Doklam valley within 40 minutes. The alternate road puts no restrictions on load carrying capacity.
In 2017 military standoff between India and China in Doklam, it took up to seven hours on a mule track for forces to access the base, reported NDTV.
This alternate road sanctioned in 2015, can alter the military equation in the region, as in 2017, the Indian Army had to move to the tri-junction area via a single road.
“The alternate road will help inter-valley troops transfer and reinforcement,” a senior military officer was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
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According to the BRO, the newly made Bheem Base-Dokala road “was black topped on a war footing” and has enabled “defence preparedness of the country in the wake of any enemy aggression”.
The BRO further added that the new route has also eased logistic difficulties, reduced time and made the process of deployment smoother.
In June 2017, India opposed China’s road building at Doklam Plateau that made the entire Sikkim and the “Chicken Neck” near Siliguri (connecting the North-east with the mainland) easily accessible to the Chinese army. India moved its elite strike corps near Sikkim border to counter the Chinese army’s war drills in Tibet. The dispute ended after 73 days when Chinese People’s Liberation Army and Indian Army withdrew their troops from the disputed site.
It is in India’s geo-political interest to protect its territorial sovereignty from a possible Chinese aggression in future that its Army needs to maintain the military vigil in the area. This new road is certainly a boon for the Indian Army to maintain the agreed status quo with China in the Doklam region.
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