Gates of underground tunnel, part of Chardham road project, connected by BRO in Uttarakhand's Tehri

BRO DG Lt Gen. Harpal Singh on Tuesday connected the northern and southern portals of a 440-metre underground tunnel in Uttarakhand's Tehri district, which is part of the all-weather Chardham road project. "Work on the tunnel, fraught with risks, had begun in January. Now that the two gates of the tunnel have been linked, its cementing and concrete work will begin," Ashu Singh Rathore, chief engineer of the Border Roads Organisation's (BRO) Project Shivalik, which is building the tunnel, said.

Digging the 440-metre-long underground tunnel, over which the town of Chamba is located, was highly risky with the danger of landslides always lurking around, he said. However, despite the difficult terrain and constraints of the ongoing lockdown, a significant part of the work on the project is over, Rathore said.

Project Shivalik has been assigned the job of building 249 km of road to Badrinath and Gangotri as part of the Rs 12,000-crore all-weather Chardham project..