Troops to move away from border in 10 days

Indian troops will start pulling back from the international border with Pakistan in another 10 days but the whole process of reverting to p...

Indian troops will start pulling back from the international border with Pakistan in another 10 days but the whole process of reverting to peace-time locations is likely to take more than a month to be completed.

Defence ministry officials today said formal ‘‘redeployment’’ of the troops would start in the next 10 days. ‘‘Redeployment takes time as demining has to be done and bunkers deactivated,’’ an official said. Logistics will involve arranging special trains, road convoys to ferry the troops back.

It had taken three weeks to move the army to the border, that too on a priority basis, an official said.

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The decision to pull back troops from the international border was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) last week. But it was made clear that there would be no change in troop concentration along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan followed suit the next day, announcing that it too was reverting troops to peace-time locations.

Defence Minister George Fernandes today said no constraints would be allowed to come in the way of IAF’s acquisition plans, including airborne early warning systems and mid-air refuelling aircraft.

Announcing a sizeable cut in armament procurement procedures, Fernandes told IAF commanders on the opening day of joint services commanders conference that acquisition and upgradation were being expedited. ‘‘Structural changes in the Defence sector consequent to Group of Ministers recommendations would expedite decisions in procurement.’’