New Delhi, September 12 (HS): Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the 500-metre-long ‘Nechiphu Tunnel’ on the Balipara-Char Dwar-Tawang (BCT) road in Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday. Along with this, he dedicated to the nation 90 infrastructure projects of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) from Devak Bridge in Jammu. All these projects are in 8 border states and 3 union territories of the country. Along with this, he inaugurated the upgrading of Nyoma Airbase in Ladakh to create the world’s highest combat airfield.
The Defence Minister virtually inaugurated these projects at a function organised in the Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir. After this, while enumerating the achievements of BRO, he said that your real achievement is that you made the difficult work easy with your efforts. The citizens of the country have stopped taking the development of the border area as an achievement, as it has now become normal. Starting an ambitious project and completing it on time is now the norm in the new India. For example, the work of a neurosurgeon is difficult, but as he gains expertise, his efficiency increases. Like ISRO, it made a successful soft landing on the moon’s Shiv Shakti Point. There was a time when it was difficult for ISRO to launch satellites, but now ISRO has gained so much expertise in it that it has reached not only the Moon and Mars but also the Sun. Similarly, the development of infrastructure in difficult areas has become an easy task for BRO.
BRO conducted the last break-through blast’ in May last year for the excavation work of the Nechiphu tunnel built in Arunachal Pradesh. This tunnel is equipped with modern lighting and safety facilities for two-way traffic. The foundation stone of this project was laid by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on October 12, 2020. The Nechiphu Tunnel is built at an altitude of 5,700 feet on the Balipara-Char Duar-Tawang (BCT) road in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. It is a 500-metre-long D-shaped single-tube double-lane tunnel. The tunnel will accommodate two-way traffic and will be equipped with modern lighting and safety features.
In fact, the weather around the Nechifu Pass has remained extremely hazy, causing problems for normal traffic and military convoys for many decades. Keeping this in mind, the construction of this tunnel was planned. Therefore, the tunnel has been fitted with state-of-the-art electro-mechanical systems, which include firefighting equipment, an auto-illumination system, and a data acquisition (SCADA)-controlled monitoring system. For safe pedestrian movement, footpaths have been built on both sides of the tunnel, under which power cables and optical fibre cables have been laid.
Another strategic twin-tube tunnel, the ‘Sela Tunnel Project’ in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, on the same road as the Nechiphu Tunnel Project, is expected to be completed in the next 20 days. It will be the world’s longest two-lane tunnel at an altitude of 13 thousand feet and above. Sela Tunnel will be like a ‘lifeline’ by providing all-weather connectivity to the Tawang sector. After the commissioning of both tunnels, there will be strategically safe movement of military convoys in all weather conditions. BRO has constructed high-altitude mountain tunnels in the most challenging areas of the country in the last two years. Apart from Atal Tunnel, Rohtang in Himachal Pradesh and Chamba Tunnel in Uttarakhand have already been dedicated to the nation.
Hindusthan Samachar/ Indrani Sarkar
