HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Feb 28: In a major milestone, the longest tunnel, T-01 of the Adit section of the Sivok – Rangpo Rail Project (SRRP) located in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, has achieved a breakthrough.
With the breakthrough of the tunnel measuring 4224 meters long on Tuesday, mining activities have been successfully accomplished in all the Adit tunnels of this project.
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The length of the main tunnel of T-01 is 4224 meters, along with an evacuation tunnel measuring 855 meters situated near the Coronation Bridge in Darjeeling district. The main tunnel traverses through vulnerable and challenging geological and seismic conditions of the Younger Himalayas. Like all other tunnels in the SRRP, to counter vulnerability of the ground mass, the latest and most sophisticated tunneling technology, i.e., New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) has been used here.
The Sivok – Rangpo new rail link project connecting Sivok in West Bengal and Rangpo in Sikkim is about 45 kms long and is characterized by 14 tunnels, 13 major bridges, nine minor bridges and five stations. The length of the longest tunnel (T-10) is 5.3 km and length of the longest bridge (Br-17) is 425 meters. About 38.65 kms of the entire project alignment is passing through tunnels. 91.59 per cent of the tunneling work has already been completed.
At present, the final lining has been completed in tunnel T-14 and T-9 and is under progress in tunnel T-2, T-3, T-5, T-6, T-7, T-10, T-11 and T-12. A total of 10.89 km lining has been completed till date. Work in all sections is being carried out round the clock.
This is one of the most prestigious ongoing national projects in India and on completion of this project, Sikkim will be connected via railways for the first time. The rail network, on its completion is aimed to provide alternate connectivity to the state of Sikkim. At present all the activities related to construction of tunnels, bridges and station yards are going on war footing for early completion of the project.
