After years of delay, work finally began today on the ambitious, almost nine km-long Rohtang tunnel in Himachal Pradesh.
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi today declared the work open, as drilling began on the south portal at Dhundi, 25 km from Manali.
The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is targeting to complete the work by 2015. It is estimated to cost around Rs 1700 crore.
Once completed, the tunnel road will be the longest road tunnel in the country and
reduce distance between the green Kullu valley and the dry and cold Lahaul valley, bordering Tibet, by 46 km.
The road further leads to strategically landlocked Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir.
The tunnel will help avoid the 3995m high Rohtang pass, which is notorious for snowstorms.
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Due to heavy snowfall the pass remains closed for vehicular traffic for half the year.
Conceived way back in 1983, the 11m-wide tunnel road will be divided into three parts- ventilations, highway and egress tunnel. CCTV cameras will be installed for security reasons.
The tunnel road will have the capacity of bearing 3,000 cars and 1,500 trucks which will travel between 30 to 80 kmph and will have to brave temperatures as low as minus 2C to minus 20C during mid-winter.