Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inaugurated the Asia’s longest bi-directional tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway on Monday. The PM dedicated this tunnel to the residents of the nation. This tunnel, from Chenani-Nashri, will cut down travel from Jammu to Srinagar by two hours.
Nitin Gadkari, the Road Transport, and Highways Shipping Minister accompanied Mr. Modi to this inauguration. The tunnel was built in a record time of four years with world class safety features in the mountain range of Jammu Kashmir. The all-weather tunnel was built with a total budget of Rs. 2,159 crores.
The Minister had said, “This state of the art 10.89 km tunnel between Udhampur and Ramban in Jammu and Kashmir, an engineering marvel on the most difficult terrain of the Himalayas, was built in a record four years.” He also added, “The project will result in a saving of Rs. 27 lakhs per day based on traffic estimates and would cut the travel distance between Jammu and Srinagar by 41 km.”
This tunnel, according to Gadkari is well equipped with advanced measures so as to keep security threats at bay. This project is a part of the NH44 of Jammu- Srinagar widening process. Apart from being India’s longest highway tunnel, it also holds the record of being Asia’s longest two directional highway. Equipped with a transverse ventilation system it has been declared one of its kind tunnel. A fully integrated control system with ventilation, power supply, accident detection, SOS call box, communication, and firefighting have been imbibed into the tunnel.
The tunnel will also have no human intervention in traffic control and has automatic smart control providing intelligent traffic mechanism. Once started the tunnel will clear the issue of snowfall and avalanches and will reduce traffic jams on the National Highway 1A in the Winter. Located at an elevation of 1,200 meters the tunnel was handed over to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) by the IL&FS, who constructed this tunnel.
