Concrete Wall will be Built Between the Longest Tunnel of Uttarakhand

• 30 Oct 2023

Why In News?

On October 28, 2023, General Manager of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) Colonel Deepak Patil said that for the first time in the country, a concrete wall is being built in the middle of the longest tunnel of Uttarakhand under construction on Yamunotri Highway.

Key Points:

• General Manager of NHIDCL, Colonel Deepak Patil said that this will be the first tunnel in the country, in the middle of which a strong concrete wall is being built. With this, vehicles will run in their respective lanes and the possibility of accidents will be zero. However, in case of emergency, air tight doors will be made in the wall to go from one tunnel to another.
• Under the Chardham Road Project, 4.5 km stretch from Silkyara to Pol village on Yamunotri Highway at a cost of Rs 850 crore. A long tunnel is being built, of which only 500 meters is left to be constructed.
• State-of-the-art technologies like fire suppression system and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) will also be used in this tunnel.
• To prevent road accidents, a 400 mm strong concrete wall is being built inside the tunnel, due to which the traffic on the right and left sides will pass through their respective lanes. Due to this wall, the possibility of vehicles colliding with each other inside the tunnel will be reduced to zero.
• If any vehicle faces any fault inside the tunnel, it will get the facility of lay-by (a place to park the vehicle for some time on the roadside). Every 500 km. But a lay-by facility will be available. A total of seven lay-bys will be built on both the right and left sides of the tunnel, out of which construction of four has been completed.