BRO Reopens Leh-Manali National Highway After 5 Months, Inaugurated By 5 Year Old Child

Manali: After about 5 months, the Border Roads Organisation has completely restored the 431 km long Manali-Leh National Highway by cutting through the snow after a lot of hard work. With this, the movement of vehicles will start smoothly on the country's highest and strategically very important Manali-Leh National Highway (NH-03).

On Monday, the reopening ceremony of the Manali-Leh highway was held at Sarchu on the border of Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. This time, a 5-year-old child from Ladakh, Tenzin Dechen, inaugurated this highway by cutting the ribbon. To mark this occasion, a handshake ceremony was also organized by the Himank and Deepak Project Unit of BRO.

Captain Sanjay Krishnan of BRO's 70 RCC, involved in the Manali-Leh highway reopening work, said, "Himank and Deepak units of BRO clear snow from both sides of Manali-Leh highway. After the snow is cleared, both units meet and this is called handshake ceremony. This time a five-year-old local child Tenzin Dechen has been called to cut the ribbon."

Cutting the snow mountain

The Leh-Manali highway gets closed every year after snowfall. The work of removing snow starts from Solanganala and Manali but the real difficulty starts from the North Portal of Atal Tunnel, Keylong. Wherever the snow sheet becomes even thicker, 40 to 50 feet high icebergs will be formed during this time.

BRO faces the most difficulty on this route, and it took about 43 days for it to restore the road from North Portal Keylong to Sarchu of Atal Tunnel. For this, 12 heavy machines were used to remove about 50 feet high icebergs and 5 to 8 feet thick snow. The BRO overcame the challenge of finding the road buried under the snow successfully.

Sudden snowfall also became a big hurdle in the mission to restore the highway. Due to this, the operation had to be restarted 10 km back from Darcha.

Delay of 19 days

Every year after snowfall in November-December, a thick sheet of snow starts spreading on the Manali-Leh Highway. As a precautionary measure, the administration closes this road on 15 November every year. However, this time, the traffic continued till December due to clear weather. Last year, the Manali-Leh road was opened on 23 April, but this time due to delay in snowfall, the road was restored after 19 days.

Kargil war hero Brigadier Khushal Thakur said that the Manali-Leh route played a major role in logistical supply in the 1999 war. He described it as a strategic lifeline connecting the India-Pakistan border.

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