Srinagar, Oct 26: Khooni Nallah, the blood-soaked ravine etched into Kashmir’s highway folklore by rockfalls and fatal accidents, is set to be bypassed by December as work nears completion on the second tube of the Digdol-Panthiyal tunnel along the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.
The 2.6-km northbound tube towards Srinagar, along with an additional 619-metre section towards Kashmir, is scheduled to become operational by December 2026, NHAI Project Director Shubham Yadav told Greater Kashmir.
He said the work was on track, with only a 170-metre diversion remaining.
The 3.08-km southbound tube towards Jammu was opened in July.
The new tube will bypass Khooni Nallah and other vulnerable stretches around Digdol and Panthiyal, where falling rocks and landslides have repeatedly disrupted traffic.
The journey from Digdol to the Ramsoo-Magarkote side is expected to take around five minutes.
The nearly 5.7-km Digdol-Panthiyal twin-tube project, being built at a cost of Rs 866.37 crore, began in 2022 and uses the New Austrian Tunnelling Method.
Each tube has a width of 10 meters, ensuring sufficient space for vehicular movement and enhanced safety standards.
MAGARKOTE-PANTHIYAL TUNNEL NEARING COMPLETION
Work on the separate 619-metre-long tube, known as the 84 tunnel is nearing completion and it is expected to open to traffic by December, Yadav said. The 870-metre twin tube T5 cut-and-cover tunnel, built with a protective canopy, is already operational.
Together, the tubes form a four-lane structure that has shortened the route by around 1.1 km, bypassing much of the landslide-prone Panthiyal stretch between Magarkote and Panthiyal.
The tunnel section is part of the larger, multi-kilometre Digdol-Panthiyal complex, aimed at ensuring safer, all-weather connectivity along the Ramban-Banihal corridor while reducing exposure to falling rocks, slope failures and weather-related disruptions.
“Earlier, when rocks used to fall and during heavy rains, many people would be forced to wait for days on either side. Now, we can reach from Digdol to the Ramsoo-Magarkote side in just five minutes,” said Abdul Majid, a Digdol resident.
FROM BANIHAL CART ROAD TO MODERN HIGHWAY
Long before modern tunnels and flyovers, a steep cart road through Banihal connected Kashmir with Jammu.
The Jawahar Tunnel, opened in 1956, later became the main passage through the mountains.
Earlier known as NH-1A, the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway was maintained by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) before the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) took over in the early 2000s. Renumbered NH-44, it underwent a major upgrade, with four-laning beginning in phases in 2011 and a five-year completion target.
The project was divided into six sub-projects: Srinagar-Qazigund (67.7 km), Qazigund-Banihal (15.25 km), Banihal-Ramban (36 km), Ramban-Udhampur (43 km), Chenani-Nashri (9.2 km), and Jammu-Udhampur (65 km).
It aimed to shorten the journey by more than 50 km and cut travel time from nine hours to four.
Land acquisition, utility shifting, work stoppages, difficult terrain and slow execution delayed the project, with several deadlines missed, particularly along the Ramban-Banihal stretch.
Widening initially relied heavily on cutting into mountain slopes.
Frequent rockfalls, landslides and slope instability, however, prompted a shift towards tunnels, bypasses, flyovers, and protective structures.
Before the upgrade, heavy snowfall and rain often closed the highway, stranding passengers and trucks carrying essentials and fruit along the Banihal-Ramban-Chenani corridor for days.
Until rail services reached Kashmir, the highway remained the Valley’s only surface link with Jammu and the rest of the country.
“Avalanches and snow used to stop travel, sometimes for days together,” recalled Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat, 65, from Anantnag, who travelled to Aligarh Muslim University in 1980 for postgraduate studies in sociology.
