Pir Panjal railway tunnel planning and construction aspects

To integrate Kashmir valley with the rest of India through a reliable transport link, 287 km new railway line from Udhampur railhead to Baramulla is under construction. The railway alignment between Udhampur and Qazigund is characterized by high and fragile mountains deep gorges and difficult topography. Laole-Qazigund section entrusted to IRCON, involves 35 km aggregate length of tunnelling. 11 km long Railway tunnel under the Pir-Panjal range with an overburden of 1100 m connecting Banihal with Qazigund is the longest tunnel on the project and also going to be, on completion, the longest transportation tunnel in the country. The tunnel costing apporx. Rs. 650 crore is a work of pioneering nature from construction, ventilation, safety and operational considerations. The paper gives an overview of the process of selection of alignment, construction strategies, construction methodologies, scheduling and the geological modeling involved. Steps involved in translation of dream into reality in terms of selection of selection of consultant construction agency contract formulation, monitoring controls are also described. With construction work started on all the four fronts on the tunnel, Indian Railways and IRCON have embarked upon a challenging task to complete work by year 2009.