Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination (Topic: Maintaining Troops on LAC)

Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

Maintaining Troops on LAC

Preparing for a long haul in the Eastern Ladakh sector in extreme winters, the Indian Army has an edge over the Chinese as it has deployed 35,000 troops there who have already done tenures in high altitude and cold conditions.
The Indian troops deployed there are mentally prepared for tackling the weather and terrain.

To mirror the Chinese build-up three extra Army divisions have been moved to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, the Army has started preparing for extra provisions for the additional troops who will remain deployed through the winter.
These mountain troops who have been specially trained to fight on the Northern frontier, are well trained in guerrilla warfare and high-altitude fighting.
This development is significant considering the fact that India's territory along the LAC ranges from K2 peak in Karakoram, to Nanda Devi in Uttarakhand and Kanchenjung in Sikkim to Namche Barwa across Arunachal Pradesh border.

The eastern Ladakh region is a highaltitude desert, where temperatures can drop to -20°C. The thinner air at high altitudes also makes breathing tougher.
Challenge of fighting three elements: the enemy, the weather and their own health.
Another major factor is acclimatization since the oxygen supply reduces drastically.
Load carrying capacity of individuals reduces drastically.
Things move very slow in the mountains and mobilization of troops consumes time.
Building new shelters including heatproof shelters or at least livable for the -20°C temperatures is challenging.
Injuries due to Non Enemy Action (NEA): Crevasses are caused where the glaciers take turns on their outer sides and movement of glaciers. These crevasses have hard icicles formation at their bottom capable of piercing through the body like a spear and low temperatures of minus 20 degrees and below.

Medical problems on the glacier include high altitude pulmonary oedema, acute mountain sickness, frost bite chilblains, hypothermia, snow blindness, injury non-enemy action due to avalanches, crevasses and fires, carbon monoxide poisoning and problems in disposal of nightsoil.
Carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless gas. Cases of poisoning can take place when one lights the bukhari at night in a closed space like a fibreglass hut and goes to sleep.
All soldiers lose upto 5-10 kilograms of weight during their 3–4 months tenure on the glacier. This is because the body requires more calories in the extreme cold climate to maintain the basal metabolic rate.
Cost of keeping one soldier there, starting from buying of matches to his condiments, to his food, to his fuel for warming to his shelter to everything, for one turnaround year is easily at least to the tune of Rs 10 lakh.
Disposal of Human Waste is a serious problem because maintaining suitable thermal environment at which the microorganisms effecting degradation can survive is difficult. Chemicals are expensive for the amount of faecal matter to be degraded.

Land supply routes are open only during the summer, with high-altitude passes covered in snow from around November to March-April.
There are two road accesses to Ladakh from Srinagar: Rohtang Pass and Zoji La.
With Rohtang tunnel likely to open later in the year, it can potentially solve the problem, but there are two more passes on that route, Baralacha La and Thanglang La, both of which are at a higher altitude than Rohtang, and may be snowed in during the winter.
Even to reach Leh, the Army has to build transit shelters for the crew of the trucks. But bringing the supplies to Leh is just the first stop. Nearly 70% of all these supplies has to be taken to forward bases such as Siachen or Kargil.
Anything above 14,000 feet is considered super-high altitude. Of the four friction points in the standoff, Galwan Valley, Hot Springs and Gogra Post are higher than 14,000 feet. Depsang Plains — where troops were not involved in a faceoff but where India’s access to traditional patrol points has been blocked by China — is higher than 17,000 feet.