LEH: The union government on Thursday discussed in detail the plans to provide impetus to the telecommunications in the union territory of Ladakh, with Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology chairing a high-level meeting in this regard, in the national capital.
Lieutenant Governor Brigadier B D Mishra, who is camping in New Delhi for past one week, attended the meeting along with Member of Parliament from Ladakh Jamyang Tsering Namgyal.
Advisor to Lieutenant Governor Mishra, Umang Narula and all the senior officers of the concerned union ministries also participated in the meeting.
A number of issues of Ladakh pertaining with the telecommunication, electronic & IT, postal services and railways were discussed in great detail in the meeting, The Earth News learnt.
“A number of decisions were taken in the meeting and follow up meetings will be held accordingly to achieve the overall development of Ladakh,” said Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, the MP Ladakh.
Sources said that the meeting largely focussed around enhancing the communication and connectivity, as India gears up to put up a strong security apparatus in place amid the heightened tensions with China, along the Line of Actual Control.
Following the eastern Ladakh border standoff, the government stepped up efforts to build roads, tunnels, bridges, permanent defences, helipads and habitats for troops along the nearly 3,488-km-long LAC.
A meeting in this regard was chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday, which was attended by both LG Mishra and minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. Thursday’s meeting was a follow-up to that meeting, said the sources.
“Besides the infrastructure creation and upgradation, the focus is being laid on bolstering the surveillance apparatus of the Army by enhancing connectivity,” they said.
The latest developments came in view of the anticipated spike in the tensions in Ladakh along the LAC.
The Chinese attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh starting from April-May 2020 has seriously disturbed the peace and tranquillity in border areas and impacted overall ties, even as Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to build China’s military into a “Great Wall of steel” to protect the its sovereignty and developmental interests, earlier this week.
It is in view of this, that LG Mishra is camping in New Delhi since Friday evening. In this period, he had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, besides attending a crucial meeting held to discuss various infrastructure projects in Ladakh along the border with China.
The eastern Ladakh border row erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong lake area. The ties between the two countries nosedived significantly following the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades. The Chinese attempts, it may be mentioned, were invariably met with an appropriate response from Indian armed forces in Ladakh, as well as in other parts of the country along the border with China.
