India’s Longest Railway Tunnel - 11.2 Km connecting Banihal-Qazigund in J&K

Northern Railway is going to achieve one more milestone in J&K in transportation with the completion of Banihal-Qazigund section of Udhampur-Baramullah-Srinagar Rail link project.

The tunnel constructed by Hindustan Construction Corporation will reduce the travel distance between Qazigund and Banihal from 35 km (by road) to just 17.5 km (by train).

 

The tunnel section of the track was built at a cost of Rs 1691 crore, and took seven years to complete. The tunnel was built by NATM (new Austrian tunnelling method) used for the first time on such a large scale in India. 

The tunnel has been made waterproof. It's equipped with air quality monitoring, ventilation, communication, and fire-fighting systems.