Rohtang tunnel ex-PM’s gift: Thakur

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 16

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur mourned the death of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday. He was 93.

In his condolence message, the Chief Minister said Vajpayee was a statesman and a visionary, whose death was a great loss to the nation. Vajpayee considered Himachal his second home and had a house at Prini in Kullu district, he added.

The people would miss the special attachment Vajpayee had with the state and its people and his death was a personal loss to the state.

The Chief Minister said the idea to construct the Rohtang tunnel was conceived in 1998 by Vajpayee and the project was announced by him on June 3, 2000. The project was nearing completion and would be his biggest gift to the state. He said it was under the NDA government led by Vajpayee that Himachal got the special package for industrial development in 2003. This resulted in investment worth thousands of crores of rupees and employment opportunities to lakhs of the youth. Thakur said one of the largest educational programmes in the world, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan was launched under his prime ministership. It was the product of strong will power of the statesman, he added. BJP leaders, including Union Health and Family Planning Minister J P Nadda, state ministers, former Chief Ministers Shanta Kumar and PK Dhumal, state BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti, Speaker Rajeev Bindal and several other leaders also expressed their condolences.

‘Name tunnel after the leader’

• Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has urged the Centre to name the Rohtang tunnel as Atal Bihari Vajpayee tunnel, as a mark of respect to the former Prime Minister who made its construction possible.
• Thakur  said it was only because of Vajpayee that nod was given to the ambitious project.