In a hard-hitting essay on infrastructure on the eastern frontier, Major General (retd) Raj Mehta draws attention to the deplorable condition of the infrastructure in the North-East:
“Our border infrastructure is as somnolent as it was in 2007. The strategic 165 km long National Highway 31-A linking Siliguri through Gangtok in Sikkim to the Indo-Chinese border at Nathu La (14,300 feet) still looks bombed out, devastated and gutted. Blocked by landslides, ridden with pot-holed patches and untidily strewn road-widening activity, a one-way journey on this Border Roads Organisation (BRO) road, Sikkim's lifeline, takes over eight backbreaking hours. NH-31A truly represents the dismal state of border infrastructure in the northeastern region, reflected accurately by the state of the equally strategic NH-31 linking Siliguri to the "seven sisters".”
What strikes me is in the piece is the national integration mainland India has achieved with its North-eastern states. We might have failed the North-east in terms of economic and human development, we might have made life miserable for them by enforcing draconian laws on them, and otherwise completely ignored them culturally save an odd nod to a choir group, but we’ve at least succeeded in replicating our national traits of apathy and callousness.
Read the entire piece. The General, who has served before in Sikkim, and has had an illustrious career in the army, has some urgent recommendations to rectify the picture – if only someone is listening.
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