Call to name Rohtang tunnel after Vajpayee

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 19

Clamour for naming the strategic 8.82-km Rohtang tunnel after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who visited Keylong and gave it a first big push in 2002, has gained ground among tribals. The tunnel is likely to be thrown open to the public before the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

“Lahaul-Spiti, Pangi and Leh-Ladakh remain cut off for six months by heavy snowfall on Rohtang Pass. I feel like “Mera Seene par bada pathar rakha hai (I feel like a big boulder is kept on my chest), ” Atal Bihari had told Tashi Dawa, his old friend of RSS days, who hailed from Tholang village of Lahaul.

Vajpayee and Tashi Dawa discussed the tunnel issue whenever they met in Delhi and Prini. India won the Kargil war, but it taught the lessons that the country needed an alternative route to Leh-Ladakh sector to pre-empt all such attempts, recalled the old-timers here.

Vajpayee, then Prime Minister, airdashed to Keylong in 2002 and announced Rohtang tunnel under the 13,500-ft high Rohtang Pass.

Atalji gave a first big push to tunnel, an idea which had been hanging fire for decades, recalled Ramdev, son of Tashi Dawa.

“The best tributes to Atalji will be to name the Rohtang tunnel as Atal Tunnel just like Jawahar tunnel in Kashmir after then PM Jawaharlal Nehru,” said Ramdev and Tashi Hayarpa, president of Lahaul-Spiti Hoteliers Association.