Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Sept 19: The incessant rains that triggered flash floods and landslides in the State thus causing massive damages, have also hit the ongoing progress on four lanning of Jammu-Srinagar National Highway.
Work on Nandni tunnels, which were likely to be thrown open for vehicular movement next month, is completely struck due to flash floods while the inclement weather also forced National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to extend the last date of bidding for the widening projects of Udhampur-Chenani, Nashri to Ramban and Ramban to Banihal stretches, official sources informed the Excelsior.
Rain water has entered the Nandni tunnels stopping the work there for the last two weeks and it would take a few more days for dewatering the tubes and restarting the work, sources explained.
Suspension of ongoing work due to rain water is all set to delay commissioning of the tunnel for at least a month even as the job for completion of pavements and lining inside the tubes was in final stage.
Similarly, sources further said, the last date of submitting bids for the road widening projects of Udhampur-Ramban ( Udhampur to Chenani and then Nashri to Ramban stretches) and Ramban to Banihal has also been extended from October 17, 2014 to November 10, 2014 as the interested bidding parties could not do site inspection due to inclement weather.
Pertinent to mention here that the National Highway Authority of India’s flagship project of four-lanning Jammu-Srinagar National Highway is divided into six sub-projects. These include widening of Srinagar-Qazigund road (67.7 kms), Qazigund-Banihal (15.25 kms), Banihal-Ramban road (36 kms), Ramban-Udhampur road (43 kms, including construction of Chenani-Nashri tunnel) and widening of Jammu-Udhampur road (65 kms).
Even as more than 75 percent of widened Jammu-Udhampur road has been thrown open for vehicular movement for the last eight months and the work on Chenani-Nashri tunnel is also going on in full swing, a little progress was registered on Srinagar-Qazigund (30 percent) and Qazigund-Banihal (28 percent) due to some technical and land acquisition reasons.
Deadline fixed for completion of Jammu-Srinagar National Highway four-laning project is May 2016.
Though the work on the tunnel at Nandni could not start timely due to delay in clearance by the Wildlife Protection Board, the executing agency is learnt to have almost finished the job on all the four tubes; T4 ( 540 meters), T3 (330 meters), T2 (300 meters) and T1 (210 meters).
Sources said that final work on lining and pavements inside the tunnels was going on when flood water entered into the tubes causing massive trash and forcing the executing agency to temporarily abandon the job.
The tunnel tubes are now likely to be ready and thrown open for traffic by ending of this November instead of October as it may take a few more days to remove the trash and restart the work, sources explained.
The flash foods and resultant landslides also slightly damaged the Jammu-Udhampur National Highway at a few places, particularly the Jhajjar Kotli bridge but the work for repair and removal of trash was taken on war footing and thus there was no hampering of vehicular movement on the road.
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