Chandigarh:

India has been carrying out a lot of construction activities at the China border in the last three years, BRO Director General Lt General Rajeev Chaudhry said on Sunday.

The DG was here to inspect the ongoing construction work of an air dispatch unit of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), touted to be the world’s largest 3D concrete printed campus.

Chaudhry said the government of India is fully supporting the BRO for carrying out infrastructure development projects by way of increasing the budget and new technology.

The government of India has “increased our budget by 100 per cent in the last two years”, he added.

When asked if China is carrying out big infrastructure development near the border areas of India, the DG said that a lot of construction activities have been being carried out by the BRO and other agencies at the China border in the last three years.

The DG said that around 300 BRO projects worth Rs 8,000 crore were completed during the last few years.

“In the last three years, we set up 295 road projects, bridges, tunnels and airfields which were dedicated to the nation,” Chaudhry said.

“In four months, our 60 more projects will be ready and the pace of our work has increased,” he added.

The DG said that the BRO was using steel slag — a by-product of steel — and plastic in the construction of roads.

“Today, the BRO’s pace of work is quite fast and the government has complete support in it, be it the budget, machines, new technology and simplification of procedures. You can be rest assured that we will leave China behind in the next four to five years,” he added.

The DG said that the previous government was wary of constructing roads near the Line of Actual Control.

The then Defence Minister A K Antony had in 2008 made a statement in Parliament that China could use the same roads against India, said Chaudhry.

“But today, the government is thinking in a different way. Our projects are being promoted,” he added.

Chaudhry said that only two tunnels were constructed in 60 years but in the last three years, four tunnels have been built.

“We are presently working on 10 tunnels, which will be ready by next year and eight more tunnels are planned,” he added underlining that tunnels are the most important component of providing fastest and all-weather connectivity.

He said that the BRO was using new techniques and machines for snow clearance in order to reduce the closure time of roads located at high altitude areas in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Tawang and other areas.

Citing an example of Zoji La pass, Chaudhry said that it used to remain shut for six months starting from October because of snow.

The closure time has been shrunk in the past three years, he added.

The DG said that road infrastructure development was not only for the security forces.

This also immensely helps for socio-economic upgradation of people who live in remote villages and distant areas and difficult terrains, he said, adding that a road is the backbone of development.

On the BRO’s projects, the DG said that it constructed the world’s highest motorable road at 19,000 feet at Demchok.

Nearly 40 days ago, we started a tunnel at Hanle at 15,000 feet, Chaudhry said.

All roads are higher in height than the base camps of the Mount Everest, he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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With Chinese President Xi Jinping skipping a G-20 summit for the first time, Beijing is sending “deliberate signals” to India and the West by essentially downgrading its involvement in a key international forum, according to current and former officials and people familiar with Beijing’s thinking.

Missing the summit, they said, conveys China’s displeasure both with the current state of bilateral ties with India — and New Delhi’s stand that normalcy in broader ties is not possible without a restoration of peace on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) — and with what Beijing sees as a “politicisation” of the G-20, which it believes should be limited to economic issues and not involve itself with issues such as the war in Ukraine.

‘Surprising,’ says Ashok Kantha

Beijing offered no reason on Monday for Mr. Xi’s decision to skip the summit. The decision was “surprising”, noted former Indian Ambassador to China Ashok Kantha, considering Mr. Xi attended all previous G-20 summits (he attended the 2021 Rome summit virtually) and as recently as August 24 travelled to South Africa for the BRICS summit.  Health reasons also do not appear to be a factor, with Mr. Xi in the past week meeting with the visiting President of Benin in Beijing and also addressing by video a key conference on trade in services.

“So one presumes it is a deliberate signal both in the bilateral context, where there is unhappiness about the present state of relations, and a second aspect is a lack of comfort for China with the G-20 as a platform,” Mr. Kantha said. “They are sending out signals that they see things [with India] as not good and that they are not going to go the extra mile to retrieve the situation.”

Following an informal conversation between Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi in South Africa, both sides put out differing readouts over what was said, and then subsequently exchanged sharp barbs over China’s issuing of a new “standard map” for 2023 on August 28. While the timing, five days after the meeting between the leaders, was likely coincidental given the release of the map during what appeared to be a long-planned “map awareness publicity week” campaign in China by the Ministry of Natural Resources, it was seen by New Delhi as further complicating already sensitive relations amid an unresolved border crisis.

Skipping the summit also reflects China’s unease with the G-20 as a platform, and a stark contrast to its investing in other fora such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

People familiar with Beijing’s thinking suggest Mr. Xi would have been “very likely present in Delhi” if India hosted the SCO summit in person given the importance accorded by Beijing to the China and Russia-backed grouping. India decided to host the summit virtually, although it had initially planned for a physical summit in New Delhi.

“In BRICS, Xi was more comfortable as China was more in a position to influence the agenda and outcomes,” Mr. Kantha added. “At the G-20, there is much greater pressure on China, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin being absent means China will come under pressure. The Chinese feel they are more in control at the BRICS and SCO.”

Second-ranked leader and Premier Li Qiang will attend the Delhi G-20 summit. This is a deviation from standard Chinese protocol, with a clear division of responsibility in the Chinese system when it comes to international meetings. The President as Head of State (HoS) usually attends the G-20 and APEC Summit. Mr. Xi is expected to travel to the U.S. in November for the latter. The Premier usually attends the East Asia Summit, which Mr. Li is participating in this week in Indonesia before travelling to New Delhi. Both attend the SCO where there are separate HoS and Head of Government meetings.

“That practice is maintained very clearly and they don’t ordinarily deviate from it,” Mr. Kantha noted. “So this is not a routine decision, and it is clearly well thought out.”