Harpal Singh, 61, prefers to describe himself as the modern-age General Zorawar Singh.
“You know that General Zorawar Singh militarily conquered Ladakh and what I am doing is to permanently link Ladakh to the rest of India through Zojila Tunnel,” says Harpal Singh with a laugh.
Singh is the project in-charge of Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd. (MEIL), which has been awarded the construction contract of the Zojila Tunnel.
Hailing from Kapalmochan village in Yamunanagar district of Haryana, Singh has been associated with every big tunnel project in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), including railway projects.
He, however, says that Zojila Tunnel is strategically important given the stand-off between the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian Army along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The tunnel will pass through Zojila at Sonamarg, which marks the end of conifer-clad mountains before Ladakh begins across the rocky Zojila mountain pass.
“It is a very difficult tunnel constructed at such a high altitude, given the fact that the Himalayas are young mountains. They are fragile for tunnelling but once completed, it will make Ladakh region accessible in all seasons. That is why I see in myself Zorawar Singh,” says Singh, a soft-spoken grey-haired man.
Holding a map of the project in his right hand, the bespectacled Singh, wearing a blue windproof jacket, explains the intricate design of the 14-km tunnel through the rocky Zojila mountain pass that will reduce travel from three and a half hours to 15 minutes.
The Zojila Tunnel will be a two-lane highway. It will be 9.5 meters wide and 7.57 meters high in the shape of a horseshoe. The New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM), an advanced technology, is being used in the construction.
“We are EPC contractor responsible for construction and maintenance of the tunnel once it is completed,” says Singh.
Singh describes the Zojila Tunnel as the main battlefront. “We have completed one km tunnelling from the Baltal side. We call it Zojila west side and on Ladakh side, we completed one km tunnelling,” he says.
Singh did his civil engineering at the Institution of Engineers, Kolkata. He got a job as a junior engineer in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, where he worked on a tunnel project soon after completing his education. After that, he worked on several tunnelling projects in Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and J&K — where he is working on his third tunnel project.
The Government of India conceived the idea of the Zojila Tunnel in 2005 to have all-weather connectivity to Ladakh as the UPA government felt all-weather connectivity to Ladakh was a strategic necessity. The government started exploring the possibility of the tunnel and handed over the project to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) in 2013.
In 2016, the NDA government raised funds and floated bids but only one player came forward under BOOT mode. The concerned agency, however, failed to carry on the work and the project stopped for a few months. Then in 2020, the Government of India came up with a new design and the work was allotted under EPC mode where a contractor has to design, construct, and maintain the tunnel and funds would be provided by the government.
“Actual construction started after May 2021, and since then, one kilometre of tunnel from Kashmir side and 1.1 kilometres from Ladakh side has been completed,” says Singh.
Last year with the onset of the autumn and early snow, all hotels shut earlier in Sonmarg. However, Singh was in no mood to stop the work. He went out of his work station at Sonmarg and asked his engineers and labourers to be ready to work. They were surprised. He got snow clearance machines and excavators and cleared the road up to the tunnel front and with it, 1,000 labourers and engineers under the supervision of Singh started the work on the tunnel.
Singh says, “The work continued throughout the year even in minus temperature. Here black and brown bears hibernate in such temperature but I didn’t stop the work. We have seen black bears and Ladakhi fox in the area but no one harmed us.”
He adds, “The actual deadline of the project is 2026 but we will try to complete it before that.”
