Taiwan's military officially launched a large-scale barracks reconstruction project yesterday aimed at increasing the quality of life for soldiers. The project is scheduled for completion by 2017 at a cost of around NT$130 billion.
During a ground-breaking ceremony at an army base in Taoyuan County yesterday, Chief of the General Staff General Tang Yao-ming (
"Older barracks across the country no longer meet current living requirements. Because of a lack of funds decades ago they were poorly built. Some of them do not even have sufficient power and water supplies," Tang said. "We expect that the project will not only provide a better living environment for all military personnel, but also improve the integration of routine troop operations with wartime mobilization."
Colonel Hsu Chih-chung (
"With the new barracks placed at strategic points, troops can move quickly into designated positions outside the camp during wartime conditions. Unit commanders will be able to move into underground command centers, specially reinforced to resist bombing, in order to command troops during attack situations," Hsu said.
Only the command center of each unit will be provided with such basement shelters and emergency working environments, Hsu said. The rest of the camp structures will not have such facilities.
"Soldiers are supposed to fight, not hide, during wartime," Hsu said.
The barracks reconstruction in the rest of Taiwan is to be based on the model of the planned army base in Taoyuan County's Yangmei township, where the high-profile ground-breaking ceremony took place.
A total of 70 army camps are to be redesigned and reconstructed in three phases from 2003 to 2017 by private firms, estimated to cost NT$37.9 billion, said Major General Wu Chien-kang (
For the Yangmei base, the reconstruction will cost nearly NT$1.5 billion and take four years to complete.
To aid in the financing of the project, the Ministry of National Defense has established a special fund for the reconstruction. Money will be raised by selling unused plots of land belonging to the military. The ministry is expecting to bring in as much as NT$130 billion.
"For the moment, the military has collected nearly NT$10 billion for the fund after having sold plots of land in Taipei's Hsinyi district and other areas," Hsu said.
Army Deputy Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General Huo Shou-yeh (
"We need a fairly large budget to continue our modernization of the armed forces. We don't have much extra money to spend on rebuilding old barracks. This is why we try to raise funds through selling military assets or seeking compensation from local governments for relocating our camps," Huo said.
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