NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday said the development of border areas was a strategic imperative. India’s geo-strategic position is such that it is exposed to different kinds of challenges and the best way to deal with them is to ensure border area development, as border villages are the country’s first villages and not remote areas, he said.”Our objective is to transform the villages along the Northern borders, especially in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, which are suffering from limited connectivity and infrastructure, into model villages. We aim to connect them to the mainstream of development,” he said.He was addressing the Border Area Development Conclave in New Delhi, which was jointly organised by the Indian Army and Centre for Land Warfare and Studies.China on its side has fervently been sprucing up infrastructure including the well organised ‘Xiaokang’ villages all along the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control. Singh said, “The government, along with the Indian Army, is ensuring the participation of people residing in border areas in their development. We are encouraging the youth to enroll in NCC. Many government schemes are being run with the sole aim of development.” He said the focused development of infrastructure along the borders has helped in multiple ways. “The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has constructed over 8,500 km of roads and more than 400 permanent bridges. Atal Tunnel, Sela Tunnel & Shikun-La Tunnel, which is going to be the world’s highest tunnel, will prove to be milestones in border area development. Our government has started the 220 Kilo-Volt Srinagar-Leh Electricity Line to connect the border areas of Ladakh with the National Electricity Grid. In addition, the transmission and distribution infrastructure of north-eastern states is being strengthened. High-speed internet has been provided to over 1,500 villages through the Bharat-Net broadband project. In the last four years alone, more than 7,000 border villages have been connected with internet connection, and our focus has been Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh,” he said.
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