Fodder Points for Mains:

• India’s infrastructure development along the border with China has picked up, though it has rolled back the most ambitious military plan for the boundary.
• According to several military and intelligence sources, India is at least a decade away from matching the infrastructure on the Chinese side, where most posts have direct road access.
• Across Tibet, massive infrastructure projects have come up providing easy access to the border for the Chinese military.

• The 17 Corps, which is India’s first dedicated strike corps for mountain operations, was originally supposed to have three full divisions. 
• The Strike Corps was to be armed with, among others, the M-777 ultra-light howitzers, manufactured in the U.S. by BAE Systems, which can be easily airlifted. These were to be inducted from March 2019.
• According to latest statistics, only 24 of the 73 roads identified along the Line of Actual Control with China have been completed until now. Of the total, 61 roads with a length of 3409.27 km, are with the Border Roads Organisation while other 12 were entrusted to agencies like the Central Public Works Department, NBCC and State Public Works Departments.
• India is also constructing some critical bridges in the northeast which will cut down time for troop movement. The recently inaugurated 9.2-km Dhola-Sadiya bridge will cut down the distance between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh by 165 km.