The government has decided to press ahead with the creation of a mountain strike corps along the China border,with the finance ministry approving the proposal,signalling that India will not hold back on its military expansion effort. The proposal gathered momentum due to the face-off at Depsang and continued to be urgently discussed even as preparations were on for the visit of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. The understanding was that the government should not drag its feet on this any longer. It is reliably learnt that while the finance ministry has still asked for some clarifications,there are no major objections requiring any back and forth between the two ministries. All that the defence ministry has to now do is move the final note to the Cabinet Committee on Security for its formal go ahead. The new corps is expected to cost over Rs 65,000 crore,which included fresh accretion of close to 89,000 soldiers and 400 officers. The focus,sources said,is to be able to launch a counter-offensive into Tibet in case of a Kargil-type adventure by China. As of now,two new infantry divisions,an artillery division and two independent armoured corps brigades are to be part of this corps that is likely to be spread across different sectors of the Line of Actual Control. While the defence ministry had cleared a revised proposal of the Army on setting up this corps at the beginning of this year,there were serious doubts about the financial approval because of the difficult economic situation which made the cost look prohibitive. Even last year,it was North Block that had held the proposal back. However,official sources conceded that the Depsang incursion may have helped hasten the process. The incursion was assessed in the context of the new Border Defence Cooperation Agreement proposed by China. The draft,which had been handed over to India in the first week of March,included certain measures that amounted to freezing of current troop levels stationed along the undemarcated LAC. This rang alarm bells and that was,perhaps,the reason India did not respond to the Chinese draft. And then came the Depsang incursion,which appeared a way to pressure India into moving on this agreement. Eventually,India did hand over its version of the draft agreement but only after the face-off was resolved. While New Delhi is not against more confidence building measures along the LAC through this agreement,it is unwilling to accept any restrictions on the military expansion effort. Over the past two decades,China has strengthened its military presence and added an edge to its posture in the Tibet Autonomous Region,which has had its impact on routine transactions on the LAC and India is looking to narrow that gap. It is only in the past few years that India has adopted a focused approach on improving its military posture. This has been a long-term effort combined with improving connectivity,reviving old airfields like Daulat Beg Oldi and upgrading existing ones in the North-East to station Sukhoi fighters. This was followed by setting up two new infantry divisions in the North-East to defend Arunachal Pradesh and now there is a plan to bring in artillery elements for which the government is in the process of procuring light howitzers from the US,which can be deployed in hilly terrain. The plan,sources said,is to integrate these elements with the mountain strike corps which is set to be a five-year effort once approved.
