Antony asks BRO to carry road repairs as early as possible

Defence Minister A K Antony today reviewed the damage caused to roads, including the strategic ones being built along the border with China, in the flash floods in Uttarakhand and asked the BRO to carry out their repairs within the earliest possible time-frame.
The recent flash-floods in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh have caused damage to more than a dozen roads being built along the Chinese border as part of India's efforts to develop military infrastructure there.
Antony reviewed the damage with Director General of Border Roads Organisation Lt Gen A T Parnaik and asked him to take steps to repair these in earliest possible time, Ministry officials said here.

He also discussed the status of relief operations going on in the state, they said.
The India-China border roads have been named as strategic roads and the BRO has been entrusted with the task of constructing them. Many roads are already behind schedule and it is feared that the incident may delay the project in some of the areas by many months, they said.
BRO is running several projects in the state including Project Shivalik, Project Hirak and Project Deepak and also is in-charge of the 1,300 km highways in the state.

At present, the main priority of the BRO is to repair and restore the damaged highways in areas badly-affected areas of the state.

Soon after the floods, the BRO had deployed its men there equipped with heavy machinery to restore the roads to help in evacuation of the stranded people.
Ministry officials said the task to repair the damaged roads would be a herculean one as in some of the areas, mountains themselves have been washed away.