The demand for connecting Ladakh to the Kashmir Valley forround the year transportation of people and supplies had been there for a verylong time. Last year the Prime Minister himself inaugurated the start of thework on the Z-Morh tunnel which forms part of the 14.6 kilometre tunnel whichis the longest road tunnel in the country at an altitude of 11,875 feet abovesea level. The cost of the project was estimated to be Rs 6,809 crores. It wassupposed to be longer than the famous Mont Blanc tunnel under the highestmountain in Europe connecting France and Italy.
The start of work on the tunnel had generated tremendoushopes among the population of Ladakh as they would get a year round surfaceconnection to the outside world. Their earlier connections were to Tibet andBaltistan which got snapped after the partition of the sub-continent and theeruption of conflict in the erstwhile State of J & K between the two newlycreated countries.
As the misfortune has it, the work got stopped because thecompany IL & FS (Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services) ran intotrouble. The company totally slowed down the work and the government throughthe National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation had toultimately cancel the contract and forfeit their bank guarantee of Rs 122crores. It seems the corporation had been fully aware about the scope of workof such difficulty in a very tough terrain.
They should have normally allotted the work to some globalconsortium undertaking such huge projects in extremely difficult terrain. Thereare so many agencies which have even constructed a tunnel under the EnglishChannel for a Railway connection between England and France. In Kashmir itself,we have had an international Swedish consortium SKANSKA construct the LowerJhelum (Uri) power project in the early nineties which was supposedly the mostdisturbed time in the valley. They completed the project in time which has evenwithstood an earthquake of 7.5 on Richter scale in 2005 that almost totallydestroyed nearby Muzaffarabad! The work on the tunnel is supposed to bere-tendered. It is not known whether this has been done.
Keeping in view the past experience, it would be advisableto involve some global agencies if the work has to be completed in the shortestpossible time and on global standards. Incidentally, a Public InterestLitigation has been filed in the State High Court about the tunnel. Let us hopeserious thought is given to the suggestion while re-tendering so that theprestigious project does not end as an empty promise!