Arunachal Pradesh: The border state of Arunachal Pradesh witnessed a 65% growth in construction of national and state highways from 2015-16 to 2022-23, according to the Arunachal Pradesh government. From 30,692 km in 2015-16, road construction covered up to 50, 555 km in 2022-23, of which 2,506 km are border roads, as per data shared with ET.
The total length of the international border in Arunachal is 1,863 km that includes 1,126 km with China, 520 km with Myanmar and 217 km with Bhutan.
Speaking to ET, Arunachal CM Pema Khandu said, “At present, Arunachal has the highest funds spent on roads and bridges in the entire country. About 12.7% of the state budget has been allocated for roads and bridge construction.”
India and China share 3,488 km of border in Ladakh, Arunachal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim. After the 2020 stand-off with the Chinese PLA, the Centre along with the state authorities and Border Roads Organisation (BRO) stepped up the pace of road construction and now are planning to initiate work on the third phase of the Indo-China Border Roads (ICBR-III) for which new projects have been identified. The first two phases were planned in early 2000s but work on many projects were still ongoing, they added.
Between 2017-20, India has done ‘formation cutting’, which involves fresh alignments and earthworks, at a pace of 470 km roads per year, which is double that of the 230 km a year being maintained in the decade until 2017. Under the India-China Border Roads (ICBR) programme, 73 roads were identified as strategic Indo-China Border roads (ICBRs), of which 61 ICBRs were entrusted to BRO and the work was completed on 29 such projects while the work on remaining 32 projects are ongoing.
Recently, Union home minister Amit Shah launched Vibrant Village Programme (VVP) in Arunachal Pradesh and said he “will be monitoring the development work regularly”.
The Union government has allocated INR 4,800 crore, including INR 2,500 crore exclusively for road connectivity, for 2022-23 to 2025-26.
