India plans to develop a network of strategic roads along its borders with China, a senior military official was quoted as saying in an Indian media report Saturday. The planned road network in India''s remote north-east and the Ladakh region in Indian Kashmir comes against a backdrop of Chinese infrastructure build-up along the border, the Press Trust of India reported.
"By 2013 we would be able to complete work on the bulk of the roads," state-run Border Roads Organisation chief Lieutenant General S. Ravi Shankar was quoted as telling reporters in the Indian capital New Delhi. About 63 per cent of work is complete on 27 roads in the north-eastern province of Arunachal Pradesh and 12 in Ladakh, Shankar said, adding that these are high priority roads "closely monitored at the highest levels".
The report follows a claim by India earlier this year that Chinese troops had threatened Indian workers in an area of the Himalayas claimed by both countries. India says China is illegally occupying 38,000 square kilometres (15,000 square miles) of its north-western territory, while Beijing claims a 90,000-square-kilometre chunk of Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India. The disputed borders have become a focus for friction between the two fast-developing Asian giants. India has beefed up its military presence along the Chinese border with thousands of extra combat troops, armour and expanded airbases.