All-weather Manali-Ladakh road by 2026

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, November 15

Matching up to the Chinese infrastructure push, eastern Ladakh and Siachen will now get year-round access through the Manali-Leh road axis by 2026 even as a 2,000-km ‘frontier highway’ and its route to connect the western and eastern extremities of Arunachal Pradesh was formally notified by the government yesterday.

The all-weather access on the Manali-Leh road will be via a new 4.5-km tunnel under the 16,700-ft-high Shingo La (pass). The target was to complete the tunnel by 2026, said sources. The route will be 450 km in length, running through Manali-Darcha-Shingo La-Padum-Nimoo-Leh. The first Army convoy last year crossed the link, which remains closed for almost eight months in a year due to snow. Of the 450-km stretch, a new alignment road covers 298 km, 65 per cent of the work on which has been completed.

Ladakh shares 823-km frontier with China and for more than six months, both routes—via Srinagar-Sonamarg and Manali-Keylong—remain closed due to snow. The existing Manali-Leh route has the Atal Tunnel under the Rohtang Pass. The route also has Baralacha Pass (16,040 feet), Lachung La (16,800 feet) and Tanglang La (17,480 feet) and would need 35 km of tunnelling. The tunnel under the Shingo La will suffice to reach Leh by road in winter too.

In eastern Ladakh, the plan is to upgrade the bridges on the 255-km Darbuk-Shyok-DBO (DS-DBO) to carry 70 tonnes of load—mean tanks can use the bridges. Some 35 bridges will be upgraded, sources said. Bridges up to 150 km of the road are nearing completion while the remaining are likely to be completed by next summer. The road leads to Depsang where India and China are locked in a standoff since April 2020.

On the eastern front, the strategically vital 2,000-km highway that connects the western and eastern extremities of Arunachal Pradesh—Tawang to Vijaynagar—has a formal approval. The alignment of the road is proposed to run all along the McMahon Line, the defacto border with China. The road is planned between Mago-Thingbu in Tawang and Vijaynagar in Changlang district of Arunachal. The government has already relaxed environmental clearances for border area projects.

Also, new technology ‘3D printed’ permanent defences are being set up along the LAC. These can withstand a shot from a tank 100 metres away and are cost-effective.