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Arunachal Pradesh : India-China border project ‘too little too late’ |
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Political parties in Arunachal Pradesh are far from satisfied with New Delhi’s proposal to develop infrastructure along the India-China border.
The parties have described the Rs 912-crore project cleared by the Centre on Thursday to lay a 608-km-long road network along Indo-China border as “too little too late”. Delhi’s belated initiative is apparently to match Beijing’s frenetic pace of building infrastructure along the other side of the border.
Khiren Rijuju, a Lok Sabha MP from the state, has decided to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, objecting to the project, which, he said, would not fulfil the aspirations of the people of Arunachal Pradesh. The frontier state was the scene of the 1962 Sino-Indian war.
Rijuju is also the convener of the Trans Himalayan MPs Forum, a group of 18 parliamentarians from the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
He told newspersons from New Delhi over the phone that the forum had been demanding 2,000 km of border roads in the western (Ladakh), middle (Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh) and eastern (Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh) sectors of the Indo-China border.
He accused the Prime Minister of going back on his promise. “The Prime Minister had assured us that the entire 2,000 km of stretch would be covered under the project, but his action does not match the promise,” Rijuju said.
The BJP parliamentarian said the forum would meet soon to discuss the issue and work out an action plan to put pressure on the government to increase the length of the proposed road from 608 to 2,000 km. He said of the proposed 608-km stretch of road that has been sanctioned, Arunachal Pradesh’s share would be only 200-odd km.
China has yet to recognise the frontier state as a part of India, creating hurdles in the improvement of bilateral relations. Echoing the BJP parliamentarian’s views, PCC working president Takam Sanjoy said the project was “too small”. “The Centre must increase the length of the proposed road to 2,000 km and, accordingly, more funds should be earmarked for the project,” he said.
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