The Atal Rohtang Pass highway tunnel in India will open on October 3 after 10 years of hard work. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate this engineering marvel.
The 8.8-km-long horseshoe-shaped single-tube two-lane tunnel is the world’s longest motorable tunnel at over 3,000 metres above sea level, according to the India Times.
Also called the Atal Tunnel, it will shorten the 474km distance between the cities of Manali and Leh by 46km.
Govt plans to build Zojila-like tunnel to Ladakh.
The tunnel will reduce the travel time to the Ladakh region by 15-20 per cent and come up close to the Atal tunnel near Rohtang Pass,
Read hear 👉 https://t.co/K4b6wAbGNE@Aksad4u@Greater_Ladakh#Ladakh @Sajjad_Kargili @InLadakh pic.twitter.com/6vl7usi15H— Jaan Nissar Ali (@JaanNissarAli) September 14, 2020
Atal Rohtang tunnel named after the former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Highway tunnel built under the Rohtang Pass in the eastern Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas on the Manali-Leh Highway is world’s longest highway tunnel above 10,000ft.@AFPphoto @AFPSouthAsia pic.twitter.com/dyzQaxsbkq
— Money Sharma (@Money_Sharma) September 18, 2020
The tunnel took remarkably long to complete by modern standards and faced numerous challenges. It was originally scheduled to be completed in 2015, but water infiltration, a ban on rock mining and delays in the allotment of land needed for quarrying all put a damper on the construction, according to the Hindustan Times.
‘When the lockdown was imposed, labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh working on the tunnel migrated, causing a major labour problem. Later, we arranged labour from different parts of the state,’ said chief engineer Rohtang Tunnel project KP Purushothaman.
More than 700 men are working in shifts to complete the tunnel.
Image credit: Twitter
