FOR long, the country’s security was “compromised,” border infrastructure projects delayed and demands by security forces for modern gear and equipment ignored, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Saturday as he inaugurated the 9.2-km-long Atal tunnel at Rohtang.
Without naming any person or party, he said demands for modern fighter aircraft, ammunition, modern rifles, bulletproof jackets, extreme cold weather gear were shelved. “File pe file, file pe file. Kabhi file kholte thhe, kabhi file ke saath khelte the (file after file, file after file… sometimes they opened a file, sometimes they played around with the file).”
He said the crucial Daulat Beg Oldie airstrip in Ladakh lay closed for 40-50 years — abandoned in the mid-1960s, it was revived in 2008 by the IAF.“What was the compulsion (majboori)? What was the pressure?…The fact is that the Air Force was able to restart it due to its own determination, not because of any political willpower,” he told a gathering in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, Army chief General MM Naravane and Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar at the tunnel’s southern portal at Dhundhi near Manali.The tunnel’s opening, amid the ongoing India-China standoff along the Line of Actual Control, is going to help sustain troops mobilised in eastern Ladakh by providing an almost all-weather connectivity between Manali and Leh during the long, harsh winter months.The tunnel is the newest addition to the Indian list of frontier infrastructure, the construction of which has riled China which, over the years, has built an extensive network of roads right up to the LAC and the McMahon Line, stretching from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.
