This is how India is providing warmth along the LAC for its soldiers
India is building state-of-the-art bunkers near the China border to strengthen its border defenses. According to defense sources and a corporation participating in the infrastructure construction along the border, these shelters are built to hold at least 120 personnel each and guarantee their readiness even in below-freezing weather.
The Army has previously encountered significant difficulties as a result of severe cold and bad weather during wars with China and Pakistan. In response, the Ministry of Home Affairs has put in place specially designed insulated bunkers to give the soldiers greater security and comfort.
The new bunkers will have sleeping rooms, air conditioning driven by solar and geothermal energy, and the capacity to house more than 100 soldiers in temperatures as low as minus thirty. The disputed boundary between India and China spans 3,488 kilometers and includes sections through Eastern Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh.
As a pilot project, the nation has already finished constructing a permanent integrated facility for a company-level unit at the border outpost of ITBP Lukung in Leh. The building is around 27,000 square feet in size, according to an Army source quoted in a TOI story. Despite the severe temperatures outside at 15,000 feet above sea level, this building uses green features including solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and geothermal fresh air technologies to maintain an indoor temperature of 22°C.
Rupen Patel, the CMD of Patel Engineering Ltd., the private company that took up this as a special pilot initiative for MHA, stated, “This building was designed using green features like solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and geothermal fresh air technology to raise the inside temperature to 22°C — almost a difference of 50 degrees from outside.” This is because there is no electricity in this high-altitude region, which is 15,000 feet from mean sea level.
Initiated by the MHA in 2016 for ITBP jawans, the project was awarded to Patel Engineering Ltd. by the National Project Construction Corporation Ltd (NPCC) for its execution. In 2019, the bunkers were finished.
