BRO to be re-raised in Sikkim

Gangtok, Sikkim: Project Swastik of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) will be re-raised in Sikkim in January as the state gears up for an intense period of activity on the road construction front.

A large number of roads in Sikkim — including NH31A, the main road linking the state to the rest of the country — was built and maintained by Project Swastik until it was wound up in 2004. The men were deployed with Project Zaranj in war-torn Afghanistan.

The decision to bring back Project Swastik to Sikkim will multiply the state’s workforce and equipment for road construction by four times, a BRO official said. Currently, the road network in Sikkim is managed by one road construction company — the 758 Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) — of Project Dantak, which is headquartered in Thimphu, Bhutan.

A superintendent engineer — usually an officer of the rank of colonel from the army — heads the BRTF. Project Swastik, on the other hand, will be headed by a chief engineer — someone of the rank of a brigadier — and have its headquarters in Sikkim itself.

Lt Col Rajeev Sachdeva, the second-in-command of the BRTF in Sikkim, said Swastik was being re-raised mainly because a number of road construction projects were in the pipeline. These include the widening of the Gangtok-Nathu-la road (Jawaharlal Nehru Marg) and the North Sikkim highway.

The double-laning of Jawaharlal Nehru Marg is estimated to cost Rs 780 crore. The aim is to complete it by 2008-09.

Observers, however, said the decision to re-raise Project Swastik was also prompted by the state government’s insistence on better maintenance of the existing road network of Sikkim. Chief minister Pawan Chamling had recently spoken out against the “lack of effective manpower and machinery” of the BRO in Sikkim at the 55th Northeastern Council meeting in New Delhi chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Source: The Telegraph