After taking up daunting projects in the higher reaches, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is executing strategic infrastructure assignments in Bhutan to aid its development.

The initiatives assume importance given that Bhutan and China are also in talks over boundary issues especially near Doklam trijunction point which came up for discussion during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with the visiting Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, earlier this week.

The BRO has commenced three projects in South Eastern Bhutan since last year. These include the rehabilitation of Khothakpa–Tshobaley road, construction of 68-km greenfield Nanglam–Dewathang road, besides development of Motanga industrial park, top sources from the Organisation told businessline.

BRO Director General Lt General Rajeev Chaudhary will be travelling to Bhutan to supervise the projects undertaken by Dantak which is an overseas project vehicle of the BRO.

“BRO Project Dantak is maintaining the East and West Highways, which is its primary connectivity across the country and leads to Paro International Airport. Year on year, BRO Project Dantak keeps adding more infrastructure to work on, thus ushering in the more development into Bhutan,” top sources said.

It is learnt that of the 91-km package of the Khothakpa–Tshobaley stretch, BRO Dantak has got the work to develop 80 km from last July and the remaining is already developed by Dept of Surface Transport (DoST), Royal Govt of Bhutan (RGoB). Its importance is that heavy vehicles carrying natural resources from the mines in the area ply on this route, BRO officials explained.

The second project of linking southern border industrial township of Nanglam to Dewathang on the eastern highway too is considered important by Bhutan. The 68 km long road will stretch the eastern highway around the periphery of coal mine area around Nanglam and the project took off last September, said BRO officials. The BRO Dantak Karmyogis are working in double shifts in the mountanious region and in the last seven months, formation of a width of 10 meter has been cut over a length of 18 km, said the officials.

For Motanga Industrial Park project, which rolled since last August, the BRO is executing 11 different types of works including a three storey building, internal roads, foot bridge and river protection, outlined officials.

The BRO has also aligned to Bhutan’s vision of keeping it as the only carbon positive country by opting for “Green Slope Stabilisation”. In that, BRO Project Dantak signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a department of roads PSU, Green Bhutan Corp Ltd, for executing probably first green solution. “A variety of deep-rooted plants are being planted in conjunction with protective works to arrive at a highly reasonable and green initiative as a solution to perpetual land slide issues of young Himalayas,” explained BRO sources.

Since 1961, BRO Project Dantak has constructed over 1,600 km of roads, over 1,800 meters of major bridges, two airfields/airports, a high school, a hospital, broadcasting station, telephone exchanges and microwave links, said officials.

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