Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday, December 7, dedicated 125 strategic infrastructure projects built by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), the largest single-day inauguration in the agency’s history. The works, completed across difficult terrains, include 28 roads, 93 bridges and four miscellaneous structures built at a combined cost of about Rs 5000 crore in two Union Territories (Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir) and seven States: Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Mizoram.
All-weather access and faster movement for troops and locals
The new roads and bridges are aimed at improving last-mile connectivity to remote villages and forward military locations, cutting travel time and ensuring smoother movement of troops, equipment and essential supplies. Officials said the expanded network will also help tourism, create local jobs and speed up disaster response in border areas. Among the most important openings was the Shyok Tunnel on the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DS-DBO) road in Ladakh, a 920-metre cut-and-cover tunnel built in high-altitude terrain to provide reliable year-round connectivity in a region prone to heavy snowfall, avalanches and extreme cold.
Indigenous tech, bigger budgets and humanitarian role
The BRO has also moved toward indigenisation: it has started installing Class-70 modular bridges, designed and made in India in partnership with Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE), to support heavy military movement at forward locations. Financially, BRO recorded its highest expenditure in FY 2024-25 at Rs 16690 crore and has set a target of Rs 18700 crore for FY 2025-26. The Union Budget for 2025-26 raised BRO’s allocation from Rs 6500 crore to Rs 7146 crore. The scale of recent work is reflected in the 356 BRO projects dedicated over the past two years.
Beyond construction, BRO’s role in humanitarian assistance has grown. In 2025 the organisation played a key part in rescue operations during the Mana avalanche in Uttarakhand, mass tourist evacuations in North Sikkim and cloudburst relief in Jammu & Kashmir. Officials say these projects and capabilities underline BRO’s dual mandate: strengthening national security while safeguarding and serving communities in India’s most challenging landscapes.
