India’s bid to build quality all weather roads along its border with China in order to connect remote areas and move military weapons and equipments in the event of an aggression to 'assert' its territorial claims in the region near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), has been compromised due to construction defects and alleged irregularities in border road works.

In the wake of heightened road and track construction work undertaken by China along India’s Northern and Eastern frontiers in 1997, India constituted a China Study Group (CSG) to study the requirement of road communication along the China border for brisk movement of troops in case of any aggression. The idea was to assert the country’s territorial claims and upgrade logistic sustenance capability in these areas.

At the end of its study, the CSG identified 73 strategically important roads along the border as Indo-China Border Roads (ICBRs). The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in 1999 had approved the construction of these roads, to be done by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) under the Ministry of Defence, and set a tentative target of work between 2003 and 2006. The target was later extended to 2006-2012. But till now the work is far from over.

After more than 15 years since the project for the proposed 73 roads was first sanctioned, the country’s plans to have a network of high quality roads along its border with China remains a pipe dream.

The Indian military establishment which has tested the capability of some of these roads has found them unfit for the movement of heavy military guns like Bofors, Smerch and Pinaka. They have expressed their dissatisfaction with the quality of the road works. Of the 73 sanctioned ICBR projects, 61 cover a total length of 3409.27 km (Arunachal Pradesh ~ 1788.24 km; Himachal Pradesh ~ 116.99 km; J&K ~ 1093.14 km; Sikkim ~ 56.10 km; Uttarakhand ~ 354.80 km) scheduled to be completed at an estimated cost of Rs 4643.75 crore by 2012. The remaining 12 were to have been completed by local Central PWD, NBCC and state PWDS.

Some of the identified road projects with serious construction defects along the SinoIndian border are: BonaGelling, Harong-Chushul Road, Sasoma-Saserla and Koyal-Photile-Chushmule-Zurasa.

An audit of the project work by CAG has squarely blamed the unsatisfactory quality of work, late completion, poor monitoring of work progress for the slow progress. As of March 2016, a total of 707.24 km as against 3409.27 km of roads at an estimated cost of Rs 4536 crore has been completed. This is only 36 per cent of the total project covering only 22 of 61 roads under the project. Of the 24 roads examined in detail 17 were found to be substandard.

Even six roads of length of 197 km which have been completed at a cost of Rs 164 crore were not fit for running of specialised vehicles/equipment due to limitations like steep radiant, less width, inadequate turning radius, effective alignment, etc., the CAG in its report tabled in Lok Sabha on 10 March had alleged.

The DG Border Roads in reply to the charges of various anomalies in the ICBRs projects on 15 July 2016 declined comment but maintained that the Indian Army was associated all along with the BRO.

The central audit body has now proposed a 'Court of Inquiry' expeditiously against the 'erring officials'. It called for proper and timely action to resolve the defects or problems pointed out by the Chief Technical Examiner of the ICBRs project.