India has spent more than 20,700 crores on the construction of new roads in the last five years to provide all-weather access to borders with China, Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh, the central government informed Rajya Sabha .

In a written reply in the Upper House, Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt gave details on the border-wise length of new roads constructed in the last five years to facilitate all-weather access to the borders of the country.

The MoS said that India has spent a total of Rs 20,767.41 crores on the construction of around 3,595 km of roads in the last five years and these projects were undertaken by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO).

Of these, the country has constructed all-weather roads measuring around 2,088 km at a cost of Rs 15,477.06 crores to improve connectivity to areas near the India-China border.

Near the India-Pakistan border, around 1,336 km of roads had been constructed at a cost of Rs 4,242.38 crores.

The country also constructed 151 km of roads near the India-Myanmar border, which cost Rs 882.52 crores, while Rs 165.45 crores were spent on constructing 19 km of roads near the India-Bangladesh border, the MoS said.

In the Lok Sabha, Bhatt said that the country has received around Rs 494 crore of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the defence sector since revising the policy relating to it in September 2020.

“The Government vide Press Note No 4(2020 Series) dated September 17, 2020, has liberalised and allowed FDI under automatic route up to 74 percent and up to 100 percent through government route wherever it is likely to result in access to modern technology,” he said in reply to a question.

“Since the notification of revised FDI policy, the total FDI inflow reported till May 2022 is approximately Rs 494 crore,” he said.