BRO expedites work on Atal Tunnel

Project to provide all-weather connectivity to Lahaul

BOX: Shinkula road restored to traffic

The BRO has restored the Dharcha-Shinkula road in Lahaul-Spiti, which connects the Zansakar valley of Ladakh with Lahaul-Spiti. Due to high altitude, the region receives heavy snowfall near the 5,091-metre-high Shinkula pass every year and the road gets blocked for traffic movement for months.

Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Mandi, June 19

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has expedited construction work on the 8.8-km-long Atal Tunnel near Manali to complete the project in time. The tunnel is to be thrown open for traffic on the Manali-Leh highway by September this year. It would reduce the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km.

It is a strategically important project in the region which would give access to residents of the Lahaul valley all round the year. Apart from this, the route would be used by the Army to provide essential supplies to soldiers near the border in Ladakh.

Ever since the bloody clash in Galwan Valley between India and China, pressure is building on the BRO to complete the project in time.

Sources told The Tribune that during the lockdown, the construction work of the tunnel got affected, but now, the BRO had expedited it. Civil work was almost complete while electrification and mechanical work was going on a war footing.

On June 16, the Director General of the BRO had visited the site of the tunnel to review the progress. In April this year, the Defence Ministry had also asked the BRO to expedite the work. It is expected that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would hand over the ambitious project to the nation as soon as it is completed. During an election rally at Mandi last year, he had told the crowd that he was waiting eagerly for the completion of the ambitious project, which would provide all-weather connectivity to residents of the Lahaul valley.

The tunnel is being built beneath the Rohtang pass on the Manali-Leh highway. The residents of the Lahaul valley are cut off from the rest of the state for more than six months every year because of the closure of the pass as it receives heavy snowfall.

After the construction of the tunnel, the travel time will be reduced by three hours for light vehicles and six hours for goods-carrier vehicles between Manali and Leh.