Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 27

In a bid to perk up the morale of their workforce working in “extremely hazardous” and hostile conditions bereft of even a semblance of entertainment, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has embarked upon organising musical events “Call of the mountains” at Ladakh’s remote forward areas by renowned film and theatre artistes.

The musical shows are performed by different bands through ‘Go Magic Trails’, a company promoted by Bangalore-based entrepreneur Uma Sudhindra. The company specialises in conducting musical events for the armed personnel of the country whose motto is to promote military tourism.

The initiative is the brainchild of Chief Engineer, Project Himank of BRO, Brig NK Sharma, who conceived the idea about two years ago for the sole objective of boosting the morale of his jawans.

“Jawans are performing relentlessly at some of the world’s highest terrains all along the Indo-China border. The areas where they work remain entirely cut off from the rest of the world with no means of even the basic modes of communication, not to speak of any Internet facility or any other mode of recreation,” an official spokesperson for the BRO said.

“Discharging duties at an altitude of 18,000 feet above the sea level where oxygen levels are highly rarefied and icy winds blow is very difficult. This result in exposing them to high levels of mental fatigue, besides taking a toll on their physical well-being,” the spokesperson said quoting Brig Sharma.

“For addressing health-related issues of jawans, medical facilities have been established at vital installations. This has resulted in dramatic dip in casualties over the past three years,” the Chief Engineer said, adding, “It, however, remained a challenge to boost the morale and mental fitness of the jawans. It is with this motive to boost their morale and provide some kind of entertainment to our jawans that we teamed up with Go Magic Trails.”

This is the third year in row when the band has been performing at remote forward locations. Recently, they conducted a musical event at Shyok base — almost 130 km north of Leh — and at Daulat Beg Oldies (DBO) forward post, which is situated 350 km away from Leh along with the Indo-China border.