Friday, December 2 2005 17:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Thiruvananthapuram: In the light of the recent murder of Border Roads Organisation (BRO) driver Ramankutty Maniappan in Afghanistan, a forum of the former BRO employees today (Dec 2, 2005) said that the personnel of the engineering force had always faced 'insecurity and neglect'.

According to Kerala Ex-BRO (GREF) Welfare Association, despite the high risk undertaken by frontier road builders in inhospitable terrains, they had not been adequately compensated with regard to wages, welfare and security.

Over the years several BRO workers had been killed by insurgents in the North East and Jammu and Kashmir and in Kerala itself, many families had been orphaned by death of their breadwinners in remote places, the Association general secretary P N Pillai told a press meet here.

Set up in the 1960s for building roads and bridges for the Army in the border areas, BRO had been instrumental for linking Border States like Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, J and K and Arunachal Pradesh with the rest of the country.

The Association wanted the Government to take a cue from the 'Maniappan tragedy' and take measures to improve security and remuneration of the BRO staff.