News:The Government of India has accepted and implemented three important recommendations relating to border infrastructure made by the Shekatkar Committee.
Facts:
- The Shekatkar Committee was set up by the Government of India to recommend measures on enhancing Combat Capability and Rebalancing Defence Expenditure.
Key Recommendations accepted and under implementation:
- Speeding up road construction and outsourcing road construction work beyond optimal capacity of the Border Roads Organisation(BRO).
- Mandatory to adopt Engineering Procurement Contract(EPC) mode for execution of all works costing more than Rs 100 crore.
- Delegating enhanced procurement powers from Rs 7.5 crore to Rs 100 crore to BRO for domestic and foreign procurements.
- Introducing advanced new technologies to speed up construction such as precision blasting, use of geo-textiles for soil stabilisation using cementitious base for pavements and plastic coated aggregates for surfacing.
Other Key Recommendations:
- India’s defence budget should be in the range of 2.5 to 3% of the GDP.
- A Joint Services War College for training middle-level officers should be established.
- The Military Intelligence School at Pune should be converted to a tri-service intelligence training establishment.
