Projects to build climate-controlled outposts, roads along China border delayed: ITBP DG

Two strategic projects to build climate-controlled border outposts and frontier roads along the LAC with China have been "delayed" by construction agencies but efforts are being made to expedite them, ITBP Director-General S S Deswal said on Wednesday.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police chief also said the force is assessing the 3,488-km border area, running from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, to see if more outposts can be created.

The construction of the first ITBP composite or climate-controlled outpost at Lukung (near Pangong Tso in Ladakh) was entrusted to NBCC but has been delayed, Deswal said.

"We are requesting them to expedite the work. We are making efforts to ensure that the work is complete without further delay," he told reporters on the eve of the 58th Raising Day of the paramilitary force raised in the aftermath of the 1962 Chinese aggression.

The building of composite outposts for ITBP troops is an ambitious project sanctioned by the Union government a few years ago. These bases will have climate-controlled temperatures for jawans who guard the Line of Actual Control with China and the source of energy at these will be clean fuel or solar energy, and not diesel or kerosene.

These high-altitude border outposts will also have facilities to store water in liquid form.

If the outside temperature is say about minus 40 degrees Celsius, the temperature inside the composite outposts will be around normal room temperature at 25-30 degrees Celsius, a senior official said.

At present, there are 180 ITBP border outposts on this front, the official added.

For border roads too, DG Deswal said, there has been a "delay" by construction agencies but "they are also very concerned about it."