Situation along LAC stable ‘but sensitive’, no new friction point in a year: Army Chief General Manoj Pande

ANI

New Delhi, January 29

While maintaining that the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) remains stable ‘but sensitive’, Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Pande on Monday said that in the past one year, there haven’t had any more friction areas between India and China.

In an interview to ANI, the Chief of Army Staff said that a total of 20 senior higher military commander meetings and 14 meetings of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on China-India Border Affairs have taken place since April 2020.

“The situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) remains stable but is sensitive. In the past year or thereabouts, we haven’t had any more friction areas in this. In terms of our efforts at resolution, our talks and dialogue both at the military level as well as the diplomatic level continue with the adversary,” General Pande said.

He said, “We have had total of 20 senior higher military commander-level meetings and 14 WMCC meetings since April 2020. So by the means of these talks, we’re hopeful that we’ll find a resolution.”

India shares 3,488 km of border with China that runs along the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

Since May 2020, when the Chinese troops tried to aggressively change the status quo on LAC in eastern Ladakh, both sides have been deployed in forward positions near Patrolling Point 15, which emerged as a friction point in the wake of the Galwan clash.

Briefing about the Army’s preparedness levels along the northern border, General Pande said, “Our deployment remains robust as well as balanced and we are also maintaining adequate reserves to be able to deal with any contingencies.”

“While this is happening, we are also focussing on our capability development in these areas in terms of infusion of technology, modernisation, inducting better systems such as our protected vehicles, surveillance drones, better communication radio sets etc. Simultaneously, our effort and focus are also on infrastructure development…be it the habitat, forward connectivity to the LAC or strategic road connectivity...It also includes extending power supply to our forward troops, improving communication in terms of 5G communication to our troops deployed in forward areas,” the Army Chief said.

“We are also working alongside other government agencies, local administration and the local population to make sure that our preparedness levels along the LAC always remain high,” he added.

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