Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Feb 15: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh convened here a high-level meeting with senior Defence functionaries to discuss the various options to carry forward the proposal for construction of the historic “Chhatergalla” tunnel on Basohli-Bhaderwah road axis.
Among those who attended the meeting were MoS Defence Subhash Bhamre, Engineer-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Suresh Sharma, DG Military Operations (DGMO) Lt. Gen. A.K. Bhatt, Director General BRO Lt. Gen. S.K. Srivastava and Superintending Engineer BRO A.S. Rathore. In the meeting lasting over 45 minutes, the Minister was provided an update on the current status of the proposal and the correspondence on this issue between the union Ministry of Defence and the union Ministry of Road, Transport & Highways (MoRTH), Government of India.
Dr Jitendra Singh, who has been constantly pursuing the proposal ever since his election as an MP from the region, said that, on principle, there is absolute unanimity on the need for construction of this tunnel and to this extent, the Union Ministry of Defence as well as the Union Ministry of RTH were on the same page. However,the only issue is the funding since the Budget could be around Rs. 3,500 crore and various options are being worked out for this purpose with the concerned Ministries.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, after the proposal is finally through, the completion of the project may take 10 to 15 years, but he was keen that the proposal gets through during his current Parliamentary term. This will be a historic landmark in road connectivity in the constituency, like the other proposal for construction of Katra-Amritsar-Delhi Express corridor which has already been approved by the Union Ministry of Road Transport, he added.
The proposed tunnel will not only provide an all-weather connectivity and alternate route of transport to the erstwhile Doda district, Dr Jitendra Singh said, it would also be a game-changer for trade, business, tourism, including pilgrim tourism and will drastically reduce the travel distance as well as travel time.
Engineer-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Suresh Sharma said that feasibility study had already been carried out which had given positive response for this project. While the initial length of tunnel was calculated to be around 3.5 kms approximately, he said, in the final reckoning when the actual construction is undertaken on the ground, the length of the tunnel may possibly go up to around 6 kms.
Meanwhile, MoRTH has already declared the road stretch from Dunera in Punjab to Lakhanpur in J&K as National Highway and a request has been made to the Ministry to declare the entire stretch of Lakhanpur-Bhaderwah-Doda road as National Highway which would also include the tunnel at Chhatergalla.
DGMO Lt. Gen. Bhatt acknowledged that he has received a letter from Dr Jitendra Singh written to Union Defence Minister proposing to categorise this stretch of road as “road of strategic importance”. He said that the Defence authorities had included the Chhatergalla tunnel in the list of priority tunnels, but the main issue now is the source of funding.
Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that he had recently arranged a meeting between the civilian officers from Road transport and the officers of Defence Ministry. He was hopeful that with the favourable response and kind intervention from both the Union Minister of RTH, Nitin Gadkari and Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, a suitable methodology will be worked out soon to finalize the mode of funding from single or multiple sources and from single or multiple Ministries or Agencies.
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