Jorhat (Assam), June 01: Twenty two-year-old Angiyo Ubin's prayers are answered when an air force aircraft swoops down into her village in a remote village in Vijaynagar district and within no time carries her ailing father to a hospital in far away Dibrugarh. In the neighbouring Hayuliang district, there is a virtual stampede as another IAF aircraft manoevures through the treacherous mountains and valleys to drop essential supplies.
These are just two of a large number of forbidding and inaccessible border districts in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh Nagaland, Manipur and Sikkim, which are entirely dependant on the Air Force for vital supplies and transportation.
"Those living in the mainland wouldn't have the faintest idea of what connectivity in the north-east is all about. Few realise that IAF today operates the largest civil air supply mission anywhere in the world apart from meeting the strategic requirements", says Air Commodore Pravesh Kumar, base commander at Jorhat which along with Mohanbari organises supply sorties to large parts of north-east.
The region consists of peaks as high as 23,000 feet with steep valleys. Upper reaches of these valleys above 14,000 ft are snow-bound round the year while thick jungles cover the terrain below 10,000 feet.
"Below the civilian population, a large number of defence personnel maintain outposts to defend our frontiers in these areas virtually cut off from the rest of the country", says Kumar.
Bureau Report