Maligaon, May 9 (MExN): In a major milestone, tunnel no. T-04/P2 (3948 meters long) to Adit of Sivok-Rangpo Rail Project (SRRP), located in Darjeeling District of West Bengal, achieved a breakthrough o¬n May 8. With the tunnel breakthrough, mining activities have been successfully accomplished in all the Adit tunnels of this project.
The length of the Main Tunnel of T-04 is 3948 meters, along with an Evacuation Tunnel of length 599 meters situated near the Hanuman Jhora in Darjeeling District, West Bengal. 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, 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 (West Bengal) and Rangpo (Sikkim) is about 45 kms long and is characterized by 14 nos. tunnels, 13 major bridges, 09 minor bridges and 5 nos. stations. The length of the longest tunnel (T-10) is 5.3 km and length of longest bridge (Br-17) is 425 meters. About 38.65 kms of the entire project alignment is passing through tunnels. 93% of the tunneling work has already been completed.
At present final lining has been completed in tunnel T-14 & T-09 and is under progress in tunnel T-02, T-03, T-05, T-06, T-07, T-10, T-11 and T-12. Total 13.13 km lining has been completed till date. Work in all sections is being carried out round the clock 24x7. This is o¬ne of the most prestigious o¬ngoing National Projects in India and o¬n completion of this project, first time the state of Sikkim will be connected via railways. This rail network o¬n its completion is aimed to provide alternate and stable connectivity to the state of Sikkim. At present all the activities related to construction of tunnels, bridges and station yards are going o¬n war footing for early completion of the project, Sabyasachi De, Chief Public Relations Officer, NFR stated in a press release.
