Combat engineers ensuring ammo storage tunnels, nuclear hardened facilities for defence forces: Lt Gen Harpal

New Delhi [India], December 26 : Indian Army's combat engineers are getting the latest equipment and innovations to ensure tunnels for ammunition storage and nuclear-hardened facilities for the defence forces in forward areas, Engineer-in-Chief Lieutenant General Harpal Singh said on Sunday.
Lt Gen Harpal was speaking at a function of the Institution of Engineers where he was conferred with the 'Eminent Engineering Personality Award' for his contributions in the field of engineering in the Defence forces and Border Roads Organisation (BRO).
Speaking at the event, Singh said, "Combat engineers are escorting road connectivity to forward areas, ensuring that local communities and villages, which are included as waypoints in our plans aligned with "Gati Shakti" efforts of the Prime Minister. Micro Tunnelling is the flavour of the time, ensuring hardened defences and operational logistics Infrastructure. Tunnels for ammunition storage for Army and Air Force are being taken up in a major way."
He further added that nuclear-hardened facilities are being developed in forward areas to enhance the capabilities of boots on the ground.
The Engineer-in-Chief shared his experiences in tackling various engineering problems of complex nature, including success stories and achievements during his long and illustrious professional career with the Defence Forces.
Singh informed that the BRO is at the help of strategic road construction not only along the borders but also in neighbouring countries, as part of our strategic outreach.
"The dual-use BRO Infrastructure of roads, tunnels and bridges is a force multiplier not only for our strategic needs but also towards the development of communities along with Pristine remote border locations. The most challenging Infrastructure landmark to illustrate my point would be the Atal Tunnel. We faced major challenges during construction."
"As part of the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' initiative, we are guiding young minds and engineers towards innovative research Internship at our Centre of Excellence at the College of Military Engineering, Pune. In a short span of time it has pioneered in the field of Nano Technology, by developing India's first Nano Material, Silicon Nano Tube and Graphene-based Concrete Less cement," he added.
The general officer has competently tackled multi-faceted engineering challenges over the last 39 years, including under conditions of adverse terrain and operating environment. The vast spectrum of engineering challenges includes the domains of combat engineering, habitat and training infrastructure, roads and airfields, complex tunnelling projects, construction equipment management, marine infrastructure, etc.