Army to raise 2 mountain units to counter Pak, China

High time that India responded to the dangers being posed by China on its Himalayan Borders. An army unit in itself will not be sufficient unless it is backed with the right infrastructure and the political will to tell China to mind their business. Lately, India's responses to Chinese incursions in North-Western and North-Eastern fronts have been silence to a timid cry at Beijing (which the Chinese deftly chose to ignore). Along with this plan hopefully India has other plans in store.....Vj


Army to raise 2 mountain units to counter Pak, China

NEW DELHI: The Army has launched preparations to raise two new mountain divisions, with around 15,000 soldiers each, which will be tailor-made for swift offensive operations in the mountains of north and North-East India.

The groundwork on the 'organizational structure' and 'equipment profile' of the two new proposed mountain divisions is already under way after the cabinet committee on security recently approved this plan, said sources.

The two new mountain divisions, to be raised at a cost of around Rs 650-700 crore each, will have 'integral tactical air mobility assets' in the shape of medium to heavy-lift helicopters.

They are also likely to be equipped with the new ultralight howitzers which the Army plans to induct in the near future. As first reported by TOI , the Army is hunting for 140 ultralight howitzers at a cost of around Rs 2,900 crore in the overall Rs 12,000-crore artillery modernization plan.

The approval for the new mountain divisions comes at a time when the Indian security establishment is warily watching the massive upgrade of Chinese military infrastructure along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) in all the three sectors — western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal).

China has established a robust network of road, rail and air links between its mainland and Tibet over the last few years, which makes it possible for it to rush a couple of army divisions near the border with India within a matter of days. The need to have additional specialised offensive mountain formations has been felt even on the front with Pakistan despite the fact that the 14 Corps, with around 50,000 troops, now guards the Ladakh region after the 1999 Kargil conflict.

"There was a move to establish an offensive corps in the mountains after Kargil. But the 14 Corps has limited offensive capabilities, roughly equivalent to that of any other corps in the mountains," said an officer.

The 1.13-million strong Army does have 10 mountain formations in a total of around 35 divisions. But in terms of being organized and equipped for "dispersed operations" in mountains, with adequate "fire-support elements", only six of them (Silchar, Dibrugrah, Bombdila, Rangia, Gangtok and Kalimpong) can be said to be true mountain formations. "The mountain divisions in J&K are more like standard infantry divisions," said another officer.

While the two new mountain divisions will be fully in place only by the middle of the next decade, the government has now finally kickstarted infrastructure development plans along the Indo-Chinese border. These plans include a 608-km road network project along LAC, which will have 27 road links along J&K, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal, as well as the overall 7,603-km Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the entire North-East.

rajat.pandit@timesgroup.com