Govt to ensure infra development, all facilities
*Admn to provide all support to prevent migrations
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, June 29: In a significant decision of far reaching consequences which will be beneficial for troops to detect movement of adversaries along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China and Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) with Pakistan, the Central Government has called for settling local people in forward areas while ensuring that people already living close to the border belt don’t migrate for lack of infrastructure and other facilities.
Officials told the Excelsior that both Union Ministries of Defence and Home are unanimous that the border villagers can play very important role in detecting movement of enemy across–be it China or Pakistan–and can timely sound the troops for immediate action. However, in some cases, the Indian villages especially along the LAC with China are deserted as population lives few kilometers away. As far as LoC and IB are concerned, most of the villages are populated though some of them are deserted as people have shifted to towns and cities because of lack of infrastructure on the borders though they have their houses there intact.
“Army in coordination with civil administration and newly set up Border Police Posts (BPPs) is likely to ensure settlement of the villagers as far close as possible along LAC with China in Eastern Ladakh and four other States including Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim and LoC and IB in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” the officials said.
Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts share international boundary with Pakistan while Rajouri, Poonch, Baramulla and Kupwara districts have LoC with Pakistan. The LAC with China is in neighbouring UT of Ladakh where Sino-Indian troops are engaged in eyeball-to-eyeball position for last over three years now.
The Central Government has assured the border villagers that infrastructure is being developed very fast in the border areas and it will be further expedited to ensure that people are settled in isolated villages while those already living there don’t have to migrate due to lack of infrastructure and other necessary facilities.
“The Ministries of Defence and Home have been spending heavily on infrastructure building along LAC in five States and UTs and LoC and IB in Jammu and Kashmir among others. This has not only been helping Army, BSF and ITBP immensely in shifting their men and machinery right up to the last posts but also facilitating easy movement of civilians,” the officials said.
China has already started settling people in the villages located very close to the LAC. Pakistan has also intentionally accommodated some villagers in forward areas, who generally act as guides for the militants, to take their help in facilitating infiltration of militants, flying drones and pushing weaponry and narcotics into the Indian territory.
They were of the view that if majority of the border villages are populated, the people will quite easily guess movement of adversaries across the border and sound troops for quick reaction.
“This strategy has already worked in LoC and IB where people living some distance away timely sounded troops about movement of anti-national elements and drones leading to their arrests and seizures of many consignments. However, there have been isolated cases in which the border villagers got involved in transportation of weapons and narcotics but their numbers were very few,” the officials said.
They added that development of infrastructure and facilities required by the people in border areas will ensure that there is no further migration of the people to towns and cities as has been seen in the past.
Besides ensuring that more and more people settle in forward villages, the Government is also keen that the civil administration regularly interacts with them and ensure that there is no migration in the absence of facilities.
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