The Atal tunnel which reduces travel time between Manali to Leh by four to five hours will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. The world's longest highway tunnel at height will connect Manali to the Lahaul-Spiti valley. Earlier, the valley was cut every year due to heavy snowfall for about six months. The decision to construct the tunnel was taken by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government in June 2000. It was earlier called the Rohtang Tunnel. The Narendra Modi-led government later decided to name it Atal Tunnel in memory of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
A Look at the World's Longest Tunnel
The 9.02-km-long tunnel is built in the Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas at 3,000 meters above mean sea-level (MSL) with ultra-modern specifications.
The South Portal (SP) of the Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at a height of 3,060 meters, while the North Portal (NP) of the tunnel is located at 3,071 meters near village Teling, Sisu in the Lahaul Valley.
It is a horse shoe size, single-tube double lane tunnel with an 8 meter road and an overhead clearance of 5.525 meters. It is designed for 1500 trucks per day with a traffic density of 3000 cars per day and a maximum speed of 80 km / h.
Officials said that this tunnel, built at a cost of about Rs.3,300 crore, is very important from the standpoint of defense of the country. The major part of the construction was done by the Border Roads Organization (BRO). He had to overcome many weather, terrain and geological challenges to build the tunnel.
Talking about the tunnel, a BRO official said that it provides a telephone facility every 150 meters, a fire hydrant every 60 meters, emergency exit every 500 meters, every 2.2 kilometers There is an automatic event detection system with distance diversion, air quality monitoring every 1 km, broadcasting system and CCTV cameras every 250 meters.