The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dedicated India’s longest highways tunnel – the Chenani- Nashri tunnel in Jammu & Kashmir- to the nation.
This Chenani-Nashri tunnel on JK highway will cut short the distance between Jammu and Srinagar by nearly 30 km.
The work on the 9.2 km-long twin-tube tunnel, which is part of a 286-km-long four-lane project on the highway, started on May 23, 2011 in lower Himalayan mountain range, and cost Rs 3,720 crore.
The tunnel, which is located at an elevation of 1200 meters, will be the first in India to be equipped with world class “integrated tunnel control system” through which ventilation, fire control, signals, communication and electrical systems will be automatically actuated.
It will reduce the travel time between the two state capitals of Jammu and Srinagar by two-and-a-half hours. The road distance from Chenani and Nashri will now be 10.9 km, instead of the existing 41 km.
IL&FS is all set to handover the tunnel project to National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) soon after its formal inauguration by the Prime Minister.
The tunnel project involves construction of 9-km-long two lanes (13 metre diameter) of main tunnel along with parallel escape tunnel (6 metre diameter) interconnected with 29 cross passages at 300 meter interval Rs 27 lakh worth of fuel is likely to be saved per day.