Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday inaugurated 125 infrastructure projects built by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), including the iconic 920m cut and cover Shyok Tunnel (12,523 ft) on the strategic Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DS-DBO) road in Ladakh. These infrastructure projects, which included 28 new roads, 93 bridges, and four critical facilities, are spread across Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and seven other border states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
The assets, worth `5,000 crores, are expected to upgrade India’s capability to move troops, secure borders and connect remote frontier villages across the high-altitude frontiers of the Nation. On the occasion, the Defence Minister called the Shyok tunnel a “game-changing, all-weather lifeline” that ensures troop movement and logistics even through bone-chilling Ladakh winters.
The Defence Minister also virtually inaugurated the Galwan War Memorial, honouring Indian soldiers who safeguarded the nation’s sovereignty in the high-altitude clashes in 2020.
In his address, Singh described the projects as a testament to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unwavering commitment to keep strengthening the border infrastructure in line with the vision of Viksit Bharat. In the last two years, a total of 356 BRO infrastructure projects have been dedicated to the nation, marking a benchmark achievement in the field of strategic infrastructure development.
Calling the new assets “lifelines” for national security, economic upliftment, and disaster response, Rajnath Singh stressed that border infrastructure is now central to India’s defence posture.
