2. History of Rohtang Tunnel

Well we have introduced ourselves to Rohtang tunnel in the previous blog. Now we will discuss the history of the "Project Rohtang Tunnel".
In 1980's Indira Gandhi was on a visit to Lahaul Spiti. She addressed the problems faced by the people of Lahaul and Spiti during winters. Well, all of us know that Lahaul and spiti gets isolated from us during winters. Immediately, Indira Gandhi went to Delhi and she discussed the issue with the members of her party.
Finally, it was decided to excavate an all weather tunnel through the mountains of District Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti.
The Government of India handed over the responsibility to Ministry of Defence. Ministry of Defence handed over the task to BORDER ROADS ORGANISATION which is a specialized agency of Defence ministry for the construction of roads.
The site investigation was carried out between 1985 to 1988 and in the year of 1998, Atal Vihari Vajpeyi allotted the budget to the tunnel. Investigations and surveys were carried out further. The road from solang to dhundi (Where south portal is located) was constructed by BRO. Finally tenders were invited and the contract was awarded to AFCONS (an indian construction company) working jointly with STRABAG AG (An Austrian Construction company).
The work commenced on 5th November 2009. Initially, the overall budget of the project was 1458 crores but some geological faults doubled the cost of the project.
Moreover, these faults extended the date of completion of the project by 3 years.
Most likely, the tunnel will be open for traffic in 2019.

1. Introduction

Hi guys! My name is Pankaj Thakur. This is my first ever blog, so please don't go hard at me. I'm working as a trainee in Rohtang highway tunnel and I'm sharing some of the information based on that experience.


The south portal of Rohtang Tunnel is situated at Dhundi 25km North of Manali in Himachal Pradesh. The elevation of south portal is 3060m above MSL. The North portal is situated at Khoksar, Lahaul-spiti at an elevation of 3072m above MSL. The Overall length of the tunnel is 8.8km. The interesting fact is that Rohtang Tunnel on completion will be the longest tunnel in the world at an elevation more than 10000 feet.


An emergency Egress Tunnel has been provided just beneath the main tunnel for the sake of safety during fires, tunnel lining failures etc. Often, folks say that the egress tunnel is designed to carry a vehicle of SUV size. Absolutely no! This emergency tunnel is designed to carry humans only. Rather, the top of the egress tunnel supports massive weight of traffic running in the main tunnel, as the pavemnt of roadway is placed just over the Egress tunnel. The egress tunnel is 3.6m wide and 2.25m high and is connected to the main tunnel through stairs provided at an interval of 500m along the length of the tunnel.


Talking about the geometry of the main tunnel, the main tunnel is given "Modified Horseshoe shape", the radius of curved portion is 6m. The width of the roadway is 8m (two lane highway).