Frontier India Strategic and Defence - News, Analysis, Opinion

Written on January 15, 2008 – 12:35 pm | by Lt Col (Retd.) A.K Sam Sharma |

With wind speeds at 145 KmPH, and ambient temperatures plummeting to minus 55 degrees Celsius at night due to the wind-chill factor, the rank and file of the Indian Army; on the Saltro Ridge’s extreme high altitude (EHH) out posts located at altitudes over 6000 meters; think of nothing much else except keeping warm and their body and souls together in the sub-arctic conditions, when not beating back the enemy in their repeated assaults. Despite the now Cease Fire; which is now holding on the LoC; their commanders; however, have much to fret about, not the least of which is the living conditions of their troops.

On an average the country spends the colossal sum of over Rs 6 crore a day to lodge, feed and equip the roughly 3000 strong garrison in Siachen, since the early 80s. Every item has to be ferried in helicopters to the forward picquets. This includes ammunition, fuel, rations, arctic equipment and clothing, engineer and other war-like stores and building materials and what have you. Dumping and stocking of all kinds has to be resorted to by road to the base camp before the onset of winter. Ammunition contact rates were high, as also the casualty rate amongst troops, which were only 8-10% owing to enemy action, and the rest due to the elements and the weather! In such conditions survival is the name of the game, and one does it on an hour to hour basis, on day to day basis, on a month to month basis, till conclusion of the six months’ stay on the frozen frontier posts. Life is lived , nay merely and barely, on its very edge. Finer things of life don’t count, as such, disposal of refuse and waste has been left to the scavengers and appropriate opportunity at oft relegated low priority. Returning transport is utilised to bring out relived units, leave parties, casualties and stores that need to be back-loaded to the salvage.

This has lead to the littering of the ‘Rose Garden’, as this is what the word ‘Siachen’ translates to; with unimaginable loads of rubbish of all sorts, and transformed it into a massive garbage dump. You have kitchen waste, human excreta, packing material, ammunition empties, and used parachutes, empty fuel jerricans, plastic metal and card board containers of ammunition, all accumulating over the decades. All bio-un-degradable! Even the ones that are, don’t in the sub-arctic conditions, so burying the refuse is out. The chagrin of the ecologists is therefore, understandable.

Old timers say that the situation is real bad. Roughly double the ecological damage, taking the Pakistani side’s ‘contribution’ also into the calculations! No wonder the remote-sensing satellites are picking up shrinking of the glacier at an alarming rate!

Some time back, the staff at an Indian Corps headquarters came out with an alarming figure of a ton of rubbish per man per year! Work it out for 15 years and you have the massive tonnage of 45000 ( say, approximately 90K tons all told on the entire Glacier region. The figures for littering by the mountaineering expeditions, on both sides, can be worked out & suitably factored in.) all lying around for any to see, smell and. .. yechh! It is going to become a health hazard, and all concerned had better watch out. The rubbish around forward Indian posts like Indira Col, Bilafondla, Bana, U Cut etc also makes camouflage and concealment of the localities a bit of a joke. Air photos are becoming that much easier to interpret. Visual air reconnaissance sorties that much more rewarding.

The problem seems to be defying cost effective solutions. Maybe the eco-warriors can come up with one, but I doubt it.

Siachen is in for a fate similar to Mount Everest, where expeditions of intrepid mountaineers have been littering the ascent / descent routes with discarded climbing gear, since 1950. Some progress has been made now, however, there and now various projects are on to clean up Everest. Nepalese Government agencies have now become strict and International NGOs headed by the intrepid pioneer mountaineer ;now the late; Sir Edmund Hillary; are pitching in too. Due to security concerns; however, Siachen, on side, will have to be tidied up by the Army only with the Ministries footing the additional bill.

(The Writer Lt. Col A.K. ‘Sam’ Sharma is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Kharakvasla. Col Sharma was commissioned into the 3rd Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army in Februray 1964, He retired in 1997 after serving for 33 years. A graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, he holds a MSc Degree in Defence Studies from the Madras University. This officer has been on the instructional staff of two of Indian Army’s premiere training institutes: the College of Combat; now known as the War College; (Directing Staff Junior Command Wing-1972-1975) and the Infantry School ( Senior Instructor, Platoon Commander’s Wing—1984-87) both located in Mhow (MP); where he taught tactics at the unit and sub-unit levels to students, some of who were from friendly foreign armies. He has also served at the world- renowned Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. Col Sharma can be contacted at aksh9@airtelbroadband.in)