Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh interacts with ITBP Jawans at the Nelong Border Outpost in Uttarkashi on Monday. PIB/PTI

Nelong Valley (U’khand), Jan 1The Centre has undertaken a special project to connect all the border posts along the Sino-India frontier with roads, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today as he reviewed the operational preparedness of a forward ITBP unit here.Singh ringed in the New Year with the troops of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) at this border post located at a height of 11,614 feet in Uttarakhand, where the mercury dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius today. This was the first time a Home Minister or a senior Union minister paid a visit to this border post.The minister also instructed the ITBP personnel, in the presence of the force’s Director General (DG), RK Pachnanda, to find out ways to rotate the troops at such high-altitude posts in less than three months’ time. Currently, the troops are rotated every three months.This would enhance the operational efficiency of the personnel and also reduce the instances of mountain-related sickness among them, he said. “I have come here to see the conditions in which the ITBP jawans are guarding the Sino-India border,” the minister said. Wishing the personnel of the border guarding force a happy new year, Singh talked about his idea of reducing the current three months’ time of rotating the troops at such arduous and tough posts.“I will urge the ITBP to find ways and see how we can reduce the time period of deployment of troops, from three months to the least possible, as a lot of time is also spent on commuting to and from such hard areas,” he said.Heaping praise on the jawans and officers of the force, the minister said any amount of facilities provided to them would be less, considering the challenging terrain and nature they had to deal with. He added that the Centre had recently decided that the light-weight, special winter clothing, which was earlier provided to the troops posted at an altitude of above 14,000 feet, would now also be provided to the jawans posted at a height of over 9,000 feet.On Chinese incursion, he said the ITBP was successful in preventing such incidents. “China is our neighbouring country and we have good relations with them. India has always tried to maintain good relations with its neighbours,” the minister said. — PTI