The Arunachal Frontier Highway is a strategic, under-construction national highway, officially designated as National Highway-913 (NH-913), and is also known as the Bomdila-Vijaynagar Highway. It is a major infrastructure project, primarily an intermediate-lane (5.5 m) and partially 2-lane paved-shoulder road, with a length cited as approximately 1,748 km.
The concept for a border road was first mooted in 2008, but the project was formally conceived in 2016 when an empowered committee asked the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) to prepare Detailed Project Reports (DPR). The highway was created to solve the problem of poor border infrastructure, a decades-old policy, and to enable seamless and faster movement of defence forces and equipment to the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It is a direct response to the growing infrastructure development by China on its side of the border.
The mechanism involves constructing a high-altitude road that runs along the McMahon Line and the India-Tibet border, passing through districts like Tawang, Upper Subansiri, and Anjaw. The alignment is geostrategically critical, running as close as 20 km from the LAC in some sections. The total cost, including six additional inter-corridors, is estimated at ₹40,000 crore. Construction is being executed by MoRTH in nine packages, with a targeted completion deadline of March 2029.
The Frontier Highway connects to a larger network of roads, complementing the existing Trans-Arunachal Highway and the Arunachal East-West Corridor. To ensure comprehensive connectivity, six vertical and diagonal inter-corridors, totaling 2,178 km, are planned to link these three major highways. The project is also linked to the Union government's Vibrant Villages Programme, which aims to boost infrastructure and curb migration in border areas.
Recently, the project has seen significant progress, including the resolution of major land acquisition and compensation disputes, such as the one on the 125-km Lada to Sarli segment. Furthermore, the Forest Conservation Amendment Act of 2023 was utilized to expedite forest clearance for the project, as it exempts strategic linear projects within 100 km of the LAC from requiring prior central clearance.