The construction of the world's longest highway tunnel has been completed after 10 long years. The tunnel, named Atal Tunnel, connects Manali to Leh at Rohtang Pass.
The tunnel is more than 10,000 feet in length, 10.5 metres wide with 1 metre footpath on both sides. There are CCTV cameras at every 60 metres and emergency exit tunnels at every 500 metres inside the tunnel. Fire hydrants have also been installed inside the tunnel in case of any fire incident.
"The tunnel will reduce the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 kilometres and four hours can be saved," said KP Purushothaman, Chief Engineer of the project.
He further added, "The estimated period for completion of this tunnel was less than 6 years but it was completed in 10 years."
"We have had this dream to connect Leh and this was the first step to the connectivity ladder. This tunnel was a challenging project because we were working only from two ends. The other end was in North, across the Rohtang Pass which was accessible only for around five months in a year," said Colonel Parikshit Mehra, Director, Atal Tunnel project to ANI.
Recently, the Assam government also announced 284 kms of fast track corridors across the state under the Assam Mala Project at a total cost of Rs. 2626 crores.