About Blogger
Surya Gangadharan is International Affairs Editor at CNN IBN and was in Egypt to cover the anti-government movement. He has covered wars in Afghanistan, the UN intervention in Somalia and Rwanda, elections in Pakistan and the civil conflict in Sri Lanka where he interviewed the top leadership of that time. He has worked for the Straits Times Group in Singapore and also for PTI, the Indian Express and India Today in India.
What raising a new mountain strike corps means for India
Posted on: 02:09 PM IST Jul 18, 2013 IST
There's a certain delicacy evident in the Army's approach to last night's breaking news on the Cabinet clearing the 64,000 crore proposal for a mountain strike corps. The Army doesn't refer to it as such, the preferred usage is "Accretion Forces" which has the beauty of being vague, not region or area specific and therefore not country specific.
The new corps has been delayed but there's no doubt it will plug a vital capability gap on the eastern frontier with China. In about seven years, the corps will significantly boost the Army's ability to deter China along a theatre stretching from Nepal to Bhutan, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Once raising is complete, elements of the corps (of about brigade strength) can be pulled out for service elsewhere, perhaps in Ladakh. It will add about 50,000 troops to the existing one lakh presently deployed in the east. This will be far lower than China's estimated three lakh troops, but India can take comfort in more numbers.
Let's take a look at what the new corps brings to the table. I mentioned about 50,000 troops grouped into three infantry divisions, also an artillery brigade (comprising long range and medium guns plus Brahmos missile regiments), one aviation brigade (comprising Dhruv helicopters for transport, Cheetah/Chetaks for reconnaissance, perhaps even the armed helicopter Rudra), an air defence brigade and 2 engineer brigades for laying roads/other infrastructure and of course logistic nodes. The corps may even have some UAV squadrons.
The new corps will not be used for defence, the orientation is offensive. In that sense the Army is taking a leaf from the experience with two mountain divisions raised earlier that got pulled into frontier security and other routine duties. This is only the second mountain corps raised since the Kargil war and there's a lot depending on it. While the Army waits for the Government Sanction Letter that will formally kickstart implementation of the corps raising, some infrastructure work has already been done. The challenge will come during the land acquisition phase as units will be located at a number of places in Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. Hopefully enviornmental clearances will come through without much trouble.
The raising of the new corps comes at a time when the air force has steadily augmented its infrastructure in the east. Six new C-130J aircraft, to be based at Panagarh, will augment tactical airlift requirements for the east. Advance landing grounds at Machuka, Vijaynagar, Pasighat and Zero have brought key Chinese infrastructure and logistic nodes within striking range of the IAF's Sukhois. Not that anybody expects a war to break out but India's ability to prevent such an eventuality on the ground (and of course in the air) has gone up several notches.
