Transgressions by Chinese PLA going down steadily: ITBP DG

Greater Noida: India is working on a galloping pace to deploy modern weaponry, surveillance equipments and other facilities for its troops on the China border even as transgressions by Chinese PLA forces is "going down steadily, the chief of Sino-India border guarding force ITBP said here on Monday.

Director General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Krishna Chaudhary said transgressions made by Chinese PLA forces is "going down steadily" but declined to give the exact number of such incidents in the past.

Official figures said while in 2015 about 500 transgressions were reported along this 3,488 km long border, it went down to 350 during the last year and this year only about 200 such violations have taken place till now.

"All I can say is that these incidents of transgressions take place due to the difference of perception. This is a perceptional difference of the Line of Actual Control (LAC)," the ITBP DG said while addressing a press conference to mark the 55th Raising Day of the force.

On being asked on the developments being witnessed on the other side, Chaudhary said "infrastructure on that side has grown tremendously."

"We were a little slow to start in the growth of infrastructure but now we are doing it at a galloping pace. We are getting new border posts, vehicles, weaponry and surveillance gadgets. We are very fast catching up," he said after reviewing the ceremonial parade of the paramilitary force at its base here.

The DG added that enhancement of border infrastructure along China is a "thrust area" for the government and the force even as troop levels have been enhanced by the ITBP on 116 BoPs in the recent past.

Chaudhary said a total of 172 new Border out Posts (BoPs), out of the total 176, have been raised on this border while work has been "fast paced" to build border roads in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, that share their borders with China.

"We had started work on 27 roads and I can tell you that on eight of these, work has been completed," he said.

The ITBP chief said government sanctions have also been received for converting/creating 50 high-altitude BoPs on this icy border as "composite" ones which will have a central heating and 24X7 supply of liquid water for troops manning this arduous frontier which is marred by vagaries of sub-zero temperatures and blizzards.