Technology alone cannot be an alternative for manning Siachen

At the Nasscom summit, he said the weather conditions at that height change almost every day and drones will be ineffective

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar believes that technology like drones cannot be an alternative for manning the Siachen glacier.

"The weather conditions at that height change almost every day. Technology such as drones cannot be the alternative," said Parrikar, at the concluding session of the 24th edition of Nasscom Leadership Forum.

He further said that maintaining Siachen glacier is of national security interest and not manning it is not an option. "We need to maintain Siachen because it is at a height and if someone takes it, we cannot vacate them," he added.

Parrikar also said that over the years, deaths due to fighting have been coming down. "We would ideally like to have zero causalties. Over the years the number of annual death have come down. At present, on an average death are about 10-14. Of these 8-9 will be due to accident and 1-2 could be due to weather conditions," he said while answering a question on Siachen Glacier.

Parrikar also said that though the Digital India drive is of importance and crucial he asked the IT industry to partner with the Defence Ministry to address cyber security issues.