In 1962, when I travelled with my parents from Delhi to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) during my school summer holidays, the rail journey ended at Pathankot. Thereafter, all other stretches were covered by road from Patahankot-Jammu-Srinagar-Gulmarg-Pahalgam and back, in noisy and vibrating Tata Mercedes Benz buses. I recall driving past many signboards of Project Beacon of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which had begun work in the Valley. The stretch from Jammu to Srinagar, then taking eleven hours, was indeed tedious. It was 10 years later, well after the 1971 India-Pakistan War, that the rail link from Pathankot to Jammu Tavi became operational. Over the decades since then, work on the railway link to the Valley has been going on despite attacks by Pakistan Army supported terrorists as well as strikes and shutdowns by the separatists.
Jawahar Tunnel, better known as Banihal Tunnel, situated between Banihal and Qazigund, 2194.56 meters above sea level, has been operational since December 22, 1956. Built with the help of German engineers, it was the longest in Asia at that time — 2.5 km long and dug through a mountain of Pir Panjal range. Being the main link that connects Kashmir to the rest of the country, the Jawahar Tunnel is, in fact, not a single tunnel, but a set of two long wet tubes, each 2825 meters long. Prior to the construction of these tunnels, people had to cross the Pir Panjal using a mountain pass high up in the range to enter Kashmir.
In October 2011, India’s longest railway tunnel piercing through the Pir Panjal mountain range was thrown open at Banihal to facilitate the ambitious Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail project. At a cost of `391 crores, the 11.17-km Qazigund-Banihal tunnel will connect Kashmir with outside world through rail and is scheduled for full operation by 2012. “We are trying to make all the rail links, including Udhampur-Katra and Qazigund-Banihal, operational in December 2012. We are hopeful that the project will be completed in 2017,” member Railway Board, AP Mishra, was reported to have said. The train would take 6.6 minutes to travel this distance from Banihal in the south side to Qazigund in the north side of the mountain.
The project is being constructed by Hindustan Construction Company (HCC). The Pir Panjal tunnel passes approximately 440 meters below the existing Jawahar Tunnel. The engineering work on the tunnel includes width of 8.405 meters and height of 7.393 meters with a provision of 3 meter wide concrete road inside the tunnel throughout the length for maintenance, emergency and relief purpose. Due to the challenging geological strata of the young Himalayan rock, New Austrian Tunnelling Methodology was adopted for the tunnel construction. The engineers had to face the challenge of eight different types of geological strata discovered during its survey and to meet the challenge three excavation techniques were adopted to complete the project. The 119-km railway line from Quazigund to Baramulla is already functional since October 2009.
Over 1,500 engineers, geologists and labourers have been working round the clock since June 2011, burrowing out two sets of twin tunnels which, when completed in 2016, will reduce the distance between the two most important cities of Kashmir — Jammu and Srinagar — by at least 50 km. Travel time, too, will go down by about two-and-a-half hours. Currently, it takes about 10-11 hours to go from one city to the other under normal weather conditions . More importantly for the people of J&K , the tunnels will ensure round-the-year connectivity between the two major hubs. These tunnels will change their lives of people in the Valley forever.
However, as per latest reports, the Katra-Banihal rail link remains a major problem as the Anjikhad bridge construction has been abandoned after ten years since it began, owing to earlier sound advice, including that of the highly distinguished railway engineer E. Sreedharan, being disregarded. Also, reportedly, the disagreement over the alignment of this line is because of ego tussles of senior officials.
In October 2011, it was reported in the media that the ambitious attempt to provide an alternate link to J&K with the rest of the country had seemingly reached a dead end, as the work had been severely affected by terrorist attacks in the area and that the government seems to be oblivious. The two crucial road networks — Bhaderwah-Bani-Basohli and Bhaderwah-Chamba (Chamba district falls in Himachal Pradesh) — started 33 years ago and were termed crucial for the state’s progress. This road would have considerably reduced the traffic flow on the Delhi-Pathankot-Jammu-Srinagar National Highway 1 and was particularly important for the people living in Doda district which is a poverty stricken belt of the state and geographically isolated from rest of the country.
The work on the 60 km Chamba road had almost been completed in the early 1990s and civilian traffic had started plying before its official opening. But the movement of militants in the belt made the security forces block this road as the civilians could have been easy targets. Similarly Bhaderwah-Bani-Basohli, which is a 166 km route, was scheduled to start a decade back and if the conditions had remained normal it would have been opened now. Security officials admitted that it is difficult to ensure the protection of workers in thick forest belt. Sometime in 2004 terrorists attacked the workers on the same road. Immediately after the incident, additional troops were rushed to provide security to the labourers and the project restarted. But before any headway could be made, the massive snowfall gave a major blow to the project.
BRO started working in J&K with Project Beacon at Srinagar in 1960. Initially it included construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, tunnels and air fields. Currently, there are four projects namely Sampark at Jammu, Beacon at Srinagar, Vijayak at Kargil and Himank at Leh. The BRO is responsible for construction and maintenance of 1078.90 km of four National Highways, 971.39 km of 12 Indo-China Border Roads consisting of GS, CSG and ITBP roads and 7,160 km of non-Indo China Border Roads (GS).
For future, all-weather connectivity to Leh, construction of 8.8 km long Rohtang tunnel is in progress, whereas feasibility studies are underway for Zojila, Z. Morh and Razdhan tunnels.
It is mainly owing the presence and sacrifices of the Army and security forces in J&K, that infrastructure could be developed and the past year attracted nearly one crore and 20 lakh pilgrims and tourists to J&K, including over 32,000 foreigners. This year shows similar promise much to the displeasure of Pak Army and separatists, who are trying to stymie the trend.
Imagine, what it will be like when the world’s highest railway bridge, 11 km long at five times the height of Qutub Minar and 35 metres taller than Eiffel Tower will come up over the Chenab river in Kashmir Valley. Needless to say, it will have to be extensively and meticulously protected from land and air to prevent being targeted by elements inimical to India.