With Chinese troops yet to disengage, Army stocks up for harsh Ladakh winter

[Spartan]

An Army marches on its stomach, but also needs specialised clothing, prefabricated shelters, Arctic tents, fuel and other equipment to sustain itself through the harsh winter of a super high-altitude region like eastern Ladakh.
The Indian Army has kicked off the process for this massive logistical exercise to ensure adequate special rations and other supplies for its soldiers, with Chinese troops yet to even “completely disengage” from the immediate face-off sites on the north bank of Pangong Tso and Gogra-Hot Springs in eastern Ladakh.

“If the usual requirement in Ladakh is for about 30,000 metric tonne of rations for the entire year, this time at least double the quantity will be re quired due to the additional troops deployed there,” a senior officer said Wednesday.
ThePLA is not going anywhere soon. So, we are systematically preparing for the long haul, with the planning for our logistics and ‘advance winter stocking’ (AWS) underway,” he said. “We may have to maintain a lot of our troops in the forward areas even during the winter to ensure PLA cannot exploit the situation,” he said.
The AWS, which includes planning, procurement and arranging transportation for supplies, is a long-drawn complicated yearly exercise to “pre-position and stock supplies” in all forward locations before the onset of snowfall and winter. The challenge is much more forbidding this time because more than triple the number of normal troops are now deployed in the region after the military standoff with China erupted in early-May. The forward locations, most of them over 15,000-feet in altitude, become largely inaccessible from November onwards.
The AWS supplies are carried in truck convoys from the plains of north India through the two road routes to Ladakh from Srinagar via the Zoji La pass and Manali via the Rohtang Pass, which remain open from May to October every year.
The air route to Leh from Chandigarh and other places is also used but has its own limitations due to altitude and weather conditions. Though the AWS exercise is already underway, the Army is also working on some alternate plans. One is to keep the Zoji La Pass open throughout the winter with the help of the Border Roads Organisation, said sources.
There is also an ongoing review of the “scale of rations” for the troops. “The usual norm is to have 2.5 kg of rations per soldier per day. But if the frills can be slashed without compromising the calorific value of around 3,500 kilocalories per man per day, it can reduce the weight of the rations by around 1 kg,” said a source.
In earlier years, the Army used to have around 150 days from June to September for the entire AWS exercise. But it has already been shortened this time, along with reduced efficiency due to Covid. Moreover, the availability of special dehydrated rations in such huge quantities is itself a challenge.