ROHTANG (HP), Oct 3 - Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the strategically important all-weather Atal Tunnel here and lashed out at the Congress-led previous governments, saying strategic projects were neglected and defence interests were compromised for years.
The Atal Tunnel, built by the Border Roads Organisation, is the longest highway tunnel in the world and reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km. It also reduces the travel time by 4-5 hours.
The 9.02-km tunnel connects Manali to Lahaul-Spiti valley throughout the year, the Prime Minister�s Office has said, noting that the valley was earlier cut off for about six months every year due to heavy snowfall.
Modi was accompanied by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat.
The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had taken the decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass on June 3, 2000, and the foundation stone for the access road to the south portal of the tunnel was laid on May 26, 2002.
The Modi government decided to name the Rohtang Tunnel as Atal Tunnel in December 2019 to honour the former Prime Minister who had passed away the previous year.
Speaking on the occasion, Modi said Vajpayee laid the foundation of the approach road for this tunnel, but after his government left, the project was all but forgotten. Experts say that the pace at which Atal Tunnel was being constructed after the Vajpayee-led NDA government were to continue, the tunnel would have been completed by 2040, he said.
�Our govt increased the pace of construction from 300 metres per year to 1,400 metres per year and completed the project in 2020,� Modi said. The work on Atal Tunnel was accelerated after 2014 and in just six years the government completed the work of 26 years, he said.
Just like the Atal Tunnel, similar treatment was meted out to several such projects.
�There was no political will. I can talk about dozens of projects that are important from the strategic point of view, but for years they were neglected,� he said, hitting out at the previous Congress-led governments.
�Nothing is more important for us than the defence of the country. But for a long time, the country has also witnessed an era when the defence interests of the country were compromised. The Air Force of the country kept demanding a modern fighter plane, while they kept opening and closing files after files, and kept playing around with those files,� he said at Rohtang after inaugurating the tunnel. � PTI
