According to media reports, China is all set to operationalize the first electric train in the remote Himalayan region of Tibet, connecting the provincial capital Lhasa with Nyingchi – a strategically located Tibetan border town close to Arunachal. This comes even as border disputes between China and India remain tense since the Galwan incident in which soldiers from both sides clashed, leading to deaths. China has been massively upgrading infrastructure on their side of the border. For the last 20 years, the Chinese have been meticulously working with a long-term plan to drastically improve the border infrastructure.
India has been caught off guard by the Chinese move. The border infrastructure on the Indian side continues to be very poor. In Arunachal itself, the majority of the areas along the LAC do not have proper road connectivity. The government of India has failed to look into this aspect. For long they ignored the need to upgrade the infrastructure. In the last decade, the attempts have been to improve the infrastructure, but still it is not enough.
Major road projects like the Trans-Arunachal Highway are still yet to be completed. The ambitious Frontier Highway, which aims to connect all the villages along the LAC, is yet to even start. This is the pet project of the present BJP regime. However, so far it has only remained a dream and no one knows when it will be materializing. If India has to stand up to China, first of all it has to set things in order in its own backyard. Improve infrastructure on the Indian side of the border. This will give advantage militarily too, in case of any eventuality.