PM Modi to unveil world's longest highway tunnel on September 29

Works of the world's longest highway tunnel connecting Manali to Leh has finally been completed. The tunnel named after former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 29th September.

Manali: After nearly a decade, the world's longest highway tunnel connecting Manali to Leh has finally reached fruition. It took an additional four years, adding to the estimated time of six years to complete the ambitious project and has been named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be inaugurating the tunnel on September 29. The decision to go ahead with the project was taken on June 3, 2000, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of India.

Features of Atal Tunnel:

• The tunnel is more than 10,000 feet long. It has CCTV cameras installed, every 60 meters.
• It will reduce the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km, saving four hours of travel time.
• The cost of the Atal Tunnel project increased from Rs 1,700 in 2010 to Rs 3,200 crore by September 2020.
• Fire hydrants have been installed at regular intervals to aid in case of any kind of untoward incidents.
• Its width is 10.5 meters, including 1-meter pavements built on both sides.