 Udhampur, June 1: India's longest road tunnel, coming up on Jammu-Srinagar national highway, is likely to be thrown open for traffic on July 30 this year.
According to sources, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to inaugurate the 9.2-kilometre tunnel. The tunnel would bypass major tourist resorts and towns such as Kud, Patnitop and Batote.
The electrification work inside the tunnel and approach road to it would be completed by the end of June. All other safety measures would be put in place by mid-July. On both ends of the 10.5 km long tunnel, there would be a control panel of ventilators, lighting and fire fighting material etc..
Around 95 percent of the project has been completed and the tunnel would be thrown open for vehicular traffic provided everything goes well, sources said.
The Chenani area located on the tunnel's south end would be connected to the Nashri area on its north end. The construction work for India's longest tunnel started on May 23, 2011, and the deadline for the completion of the project was May 20, 2016, which was extended up to June 30.
The Jammu-Srinagar national highway is the lifeline for the Kashmir valley, Ladakh and several districts of the Jammu region. More than 16,000 vehicles ply on the highway daily. Traffic gets blocked at the time of rain or snow. Once completed, the Chenani-Nashri tunnel would act as an all-weather alternative to the existing NH-1A section connecting Chenani in Udhampur with Nashri in Ramban districts. It would reduce the existing road distance between the two points from 41 kms to 10.89 kms.
In November 2014, a controversy over payments and claims led to the slowing down of the work and then complete abandoning of job by the construction company Leighton after which the main developer, National Highway Authority of India, engaged multiple agencies for completion of the project with a new deadline of July 2016. |
