The Chenani-Nashri tunnel, the passageway connecting Udhampur district with Ramban district on Jammu-Srinagar highway, is likely to be thrown open by the end of November or in first week of December this year.
Officials informed Kashmir Post that most of the civil works on India’s longest road tunnel has been completed and leftover work will the finished till end of this month.
“98 percent civil work including construction of 9 kilometer tunnel and its approach road has been completed while the installation of equipments and gadgets like sound diffusers, ventilators, fans, fire fighters equipments, electrical panels, transformers, lighting etc. inside the tunnel is under progress and likely to be completed in next 20-30 days,” sources said.
They added that after completion of all left over work the tunnel will be put under extensive testing to check the quality of work and safety standards.
“After completing the remaining work, it has to pass the quality and commuters’ safety tests including response of disaster teams to deal with any untoward incidents,” sources said, adding, “The entire process will take more than one moth”.
“The authorities will check the suffocation level inside the tunnel by passing and stucking some vehicles, capacity of the installed machinery to exhaust the unwanted carbon-dioxide and to pump-in fresh oxygen and response of disaster teams in view of any untoward incident before opening it for public,” sources said.
Sources further added that the entire process would be complete in last week of November and authorities will either inaugurate the ambitious project in last week of November of first week of December, depending upon the availability of representatives from Union Government.
When contacted, Deputy Commissioner Ramban Mohammad Aijaz said that almost all the work has been completed and remain work will be finished in a few days.
He said that so far no date have been finalized for opening of the tunnel.
Pertinently, the scheduled date of completion of this Rs 2519 crore project was May 2016 and the executing agency was hopeful of finishing the job by December 2015, around five months ahead of the deadline.
However due to dispute between construction workers and executing agency the work was delayed. Later it was supposed to thrown open in June but the deadline was further extended till July 16.
Once completed, the Chenani-Nashri tunnel will act as an all-weather alternative to the existing NH-1A section connecting Chenani in Udhampur with Nashri in Ramban district. It will reduce the existing road distance between the two points from 41 kilometers to 10.89 kilometers, by-passing Kud-Patnitop-Batote circuit.
Meanwhile, work on four-laning of Udhampur-Chenani and Nashri-Ramban stretches of the highway, which was started in last week of December 2015, is going on at six locations.
Chenani-Nashri tunnel to be thrown open in November
