The bridge opened over the Shyok on 21 October 2019 was about 430 metres long, at an altitude of roughly 15,000 feet. Named after Col Chewang Rinchen, a Ladakhi soldier twice awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, it supplied a substantial crossing on the road to Daulat Beg Oldie. The Defence Ministry said the Border Roads Organisation had built it in 15 months. [1]
The road it served had taken much longer. The 255-km Darbuk–Shyok–Daulat Beg Oldie route, commonly shortened to DS–DBO, was the product of nearly two decades of construction and reconstruction. In April 2019, The Tribune reported that the route was open, with 37 bridges across its river crossings. Its destination included the military landing ground near the Karakoram Pass, in northern Ladakh. [2]
Reaching that point required engineers to confront a problem built into the earlier alignment: the river beside the road could also run across it.
Rebuilding the alignment
Construction began in 2000, well before Narendra Modi became prime minister. Reporting in June 2015, The Indian Express described how much of the road built during 2000–2012 had followed low ground along the Shyok. Snowmelt brought seasonal flooding and damaged stretches intended to provide reliable access. [3]
The newspaper cited engineering records calling for 162.3 km of a constructed 210 km to be realigned and rebuilt. It also described official warnings dating to 2010 and 2012 about the road’s condition. These were failures of the existing project that the later construction effort had to overcome, rather than evidence that the route had first been conceived after 2014. [3]
The wider border-roads programme had similar difficulty turning approved projects into usable infrastructure. A CAG performance audit tabled in March 2017 found that only 22 of the 61 Indo-China border roads entrusted to BRO had been completed by March 2016, against an original 2012 deadline. Its overview identified deficient surveys, changes in alignment, construction defects and delays. Those are programme-wide findings; the totals do not describe DS–DBO alone. [4]
A route assembled through successive crossings
The official record shows progress in stages. In September 2017, then defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated a BRO bridge over the Shyok on the Durbuk–DBO road. Two years later came the through-road milestone reported by The Tribune, followed in October by the opening of Col Chewang Rinchen Setu by Rajnath Singh. A road and its bridges could enter service at different stages while further strengthening continued. [5] [2] [1]
The 2019 crossing used micropile foundations, according to the ministry. Its completion was a concrete infrastructure addition under the Modi government, built by an organisation carrying forward—and correcting—work begun under earlier governments. Giving the opening its proper date does not require erasing that institutional history. [1] [3]
The immediate importance was access to a remote military sector. The Tribune’s contemporary account described the Shyok–DBO stretch as having no commercial use at that time. That historical observation places a limit on broader claims: the road’s strategic purpose cannot by itself establish a measured increase in civilian incomes or tourist arrivals. [2]
The work beyond 2019
The route continued to receive investment after its much-reported completion. The Defence Ministry’s 2025 review listed the Shyok Tunnel on DS–DBO among projects inaugurated on 7 December that year. It described the tunnel as a way to make connectivity reliable in all weather. [6]
That later addition helps explain what a completion date can leave out. Establishing road access is one milestone; protecting it against the conditions that interrupt travel is continuing work. Six years after the bridge opening, the next substantial improvement was still concerned with keeping the same route usable. [6]