Fast track Trans-Arunachal Highway project

Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reporting completion of construction of a highway passing through Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon in Tibet Autonomous Region near India-China border of Aruanchal Pradesh has put the spotlight on the Trans-Aruanchal Highway project. The Chinese strategic highway project started in 2014 took seven years to complete. It is a matter of concern that the 1811-km-long Trans-Arunachal Highway project on the Indian side connecting strategic border town Tawang in north-western Arunachal Pradesh to Kanubari in the south-eastern region of the state is unlikely to meet the revised target year of completion rescheduled to this year. The project missed the previous deadline in 2019. The highway project bears huge strategic importance to India as it will seamlessly connect the headquarters towns of 12 of the 16 districts, the capital city Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh, and reduce road distances to border areas, prime tourism destinations and hydropower projects sites. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the project at Itanagar 13 years back in 2008 which speak volumes about the slow progress of the construction of the highway. The new Chinese highway has cut down the road distance between Nyingchi city and Medog county to 180 km from 340 km and travel time by eight hours. The Chinese state media reports say that the highway has been built on the former hiking route between Nyingchi's Pad Township and Baibung Township, Medog County, with an altitude difference of up to 2,892 metres between the highest and lowest spots of the highway. Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon is also the world's deepest canyon with a maximum depth of 6009 meters. China has also built a railway network through high altitudes of the Tibet region. These data help draw parallels between the two strategic highway projects of India and China in high altitudes and hardly leave any elbow room to justify a delay in completion of the Trans-Aruanchal highway on grounds of difficult terrains or inclement weather. Aruanchal Pradesh shares a long border of 1,100 km land border with the Tibet region of China. A periodic review of the progress of the highway construction by the Arunachal Pradesh government has helped to add fresh momentum to the project work. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu expressed dissatisfaction over the progress of the Trans-Aruanachal highway construction work during the first monthly monitoring meeting of Aruanchal e-Pragati held in February. The central government and the State government initiating joint monitoring of the highway project on weekly basis at high levels will help quick identification of the bottlenecks and take timely measures. The completion of the Chinese highway project has sounded the alarm bell for pushing the Trans-Aruanchal Highway project beyond the routine rescheduled target dates. China disputes the India-China border along with Arunachal Pradesh which should be enough reason for India expediting all strategic projects in the border state on a high priority basis. The backwardness of Arunachal Pradesh can be attributed to the strategic blunder of the Indian government during decades of Congress rule of pursuing a faulty policy of not developing border infrastructure to deny access to the enemy in the event of a conflict. This erroneous policy allowed China to expedite its projects of building highways and the railway line on their side aimed at facilitating troop movements closer to the disputed border stretches. Delay in projects also leads to cost and time overrun and escalation of the project cost. Timely completion of the highway project will usher rapid economic development in Arunachal Pradesh which is important to instil confidence among the population in the State, more particularly in far-flung and remote border areas. The quality of highway construction is a critical area that must not escape the attention of the governments during reviews. The high altitude areas through which the highway will pass are prone to frequent landslides. The highway and the connecting roads must have the capacity to bear loads of heady duty trucks and consignments. The mechanism to fix accountabilities for ensuring quality needs to be strong so that anyone found responsible for compromising with the quality of the work of this strategically important highway can be immediately brought to book. Expediting strategic projects such as the Bogibeel bridge, Dhloa-Sadiya bridge have demonstrated the efforts by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance regime to expedite strategic infrastructure projects in Arunachal Pradesh and other states in the northeast region. There is no ambiguity in the policy goals of the present government as far as countering strategic build-up by China near the Arunachal Pradesh border by undertaking strategic infrastructure projects that will also take care of the economic needs of the people of the state and the region. The policy needs to be supported by strong measures on the ground and strong determination to execute the strategic projects on a war footing. The latest developments on the Chinese side call for pulling all stops for early completion of the Trans-Arunachal highway project.