Wednesday, August 24, 2016

India develops Arunachal’s airfields, but a lot left to do

On August 19, 2016, the old advanced landing ground (ALG) at Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh, revived and upgraded, was inaugurated befittingly by minister of state home affairs Kiren Rijiju, who hails from that state, accompanied by Air Marshal C. Hari Kumar AVSM VM VSM, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Air Command (EAC), Indian Air Force (IAF) and senior civil and IAF officials.
A flypast by three Sukhoi-30MKI air dominance fighters that took off from one of the forward EAC airbases was a highlight of the event. Soon afterwards, another Sukhoi-30MKI landed at the ALG, recording a “historic first” in the predominantly hilly state of Arunachal Pradesh, which has several ALGs at varying altitudes.
In 2007, when then defence minister A.K. Antony visited Arunachal Pradesh, he was aghast at noting the great contrast between substantial infrastructural development across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) by the Chinese and the starkness accentuating the lack of the same, particularly strategically, on our side. Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who visited the state soon afterwards, announced a major financial package and a fast-track infrastructure development programme.
On approval by the Cabinet Committee for Security and following a memorandum of understanding between the government of Arunachal Pradesh and ministry of defence in June 2009, the IAF had embarked on an ambitious reconstruction plan to upgrade eight ALGs, including infrastructure development at an overall outlay of nearly `1,000 crores. The ALGs at Walong, Ziro, Along, Mechuka and Pasighat have since been upgraded and are operational now. Two ALGs at Tuting and Tawang are expected to be ready by year-end, while reconstruction of the ALG at Vijaynagar will be undertaken as soon as the road connectivity between Miao and Vijaynagar is restored.
23/08/16 Anil Bhat/Asian Age

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