In the two years since the PLA’s intrusions into eastern Ladakh, the Border Roads Organization spared no effort to build and upgrade the highways up to the McMahon line.
By Vikas Gupta
Defence News of India, 21 May 22
The road from Tezpur in the Brahmaputra river valley in Assam to the border township of Tawang is one of the most strategic border roads in India. During the 1962 war with China, when it was barely a jeep track, the Indian army made little use of it to build up troops on the border, while the units of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) assault used it to rush their forces into Assam.
In the two years since the PLA intrusions into eastern Ladakh, the Border Roads Organization (BRO) spared no effort to build and upgrade road highways from Tezpur to the McMahon line. On Friday, the BRO carried out the last “breakthrough explosion” to mark the completion of excavation work for the Nechiphu tunnel on the Tezpur-Tawang road, which will allow it to be used even in the extreme fog that surrounds it. gathers for months. suddenly.
“The tunnel has been designed to circumvent the extreme foggy conditions that prevail around the Nechiphu Pass and have hampered general traffic and military convoys for many decades,” the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Friday.
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh laid the foundation stone for the Nechiphu tunnel in October 2020, and today the BRO chief pulled the trigger from New Delhi for the latest blasting work.
“Nechiphu Tunnel, at an elevation of 5,700 feet, is a unique, 500-meter-long, D-shaped, double-track tunnel on the Balipara-Charduar-Tawang (BCT) road in West Kameng district. The tunnel will accommodate two-way traffic and will be equipped with modern lighting and security installations,” the BRO announced.
Along with the work on the Nechiphu Tunnel, the BRO also completed in January the excavation work of the strategic “Sela Tunnel Project”, on the same route. The Sela tunnel has two tubes, one being 1,555 meters long and the other 980 meters.
Today’s explosion marks the cumulative excavation of more than 4,500 meters of tunneling work carried out by the BRO in less than two years.
“The (Nechiphu) tunnel will be equipped with a state-of-the-art electromechanical system including fire-fighting devices, an automatic lighting system and monitoring systems controlled by supervisory control and data acquisition ( SCADA). It will also accommodate raised sidewalks on both sides for safer pedestrian circulation, which will have conduits for electrical, optical cables fibercables and power lines to reinforce the infrastructure of civic amenities,” the Ministry of Defense said.
“The current tunnel construction is being carried out by cutting through fragile and highly fractured rock strata. The resulting challenges are met daily through strict 3D monitoring and the proactive application of tunnel support systems in accordance with the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM),” the Ministry of Defense said.
The Department of Defense also says the BRO has consistently performed “infrastructure wonders” in some of the toughest border areas over the past two years. Tunneling successes include the completion of the Atal Tunnel, under the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh; and the Chamba tunnel in Uttarakhand. A series of smaller tunnels were also completed during this period.
