'Nyoma airfield game-changer': Rajnath opens new border infra

Defence minister Rajnath Singh, who inaugurated a raft of infrastructure projects near the China border on Tuesday, said the airfield coming up at Nyoma in eastern Ladakh, the world’s highest, will be a “game-changer” for the armed forces while stressing that timely execution of projects in far-flung areas has become “the new normal of New India.”

- Rahul Singh

 

Singh dedicated to the country 90 projects, executed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) at a cost of ₹2,941 crore, with the new roads, bridges, tunnels, airfields and helipads set to boost military mobility, logistics support for deployed forces, and movement of civilians in border areas stretching from Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim to Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

India’s infrastructure push is a direct response to the Chinese thrust on developing its border areas. Singh remotely inaugurated 63 bridges, 22 roads, one tunnel, two airfields and two helipads from Jammu where he opened the BRO’s 422-metre Devak bridge on Bishnah-Kaulpur-Phulpur road. He also virtually laid the foundation stone of the Nyoma airfield, located at a height of 13,300 feet and 23km from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) along which India and China have been locked in a military standoff for more than three years.

Those present included minister of state in the Prime Minister’s office Jitendra Singh, BRO chief Lieutenant General Rajeev Chaudhry and Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Air Command, Air Marshal Pankaj Mohan Sinha. “BRO is also going to start work on the airfield at Nyoma. It will be developed as a staging ground for troops deployed at forward posts in Ladakh. This will be one of the highest airfields in the world, which will be a game changer for our armed forces,” Singh said.