The 9.02 km Atal tunnel reduces the Manali-Leh distance by 46 km or five hours.
Rohtang / Sissu / Solang Valley (HP):
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that congressional governments had long compromised the country’s defense interests by “playing with files” and delaying the acquisition of fighter jets, weapons, ammunition and strategic equipment.
Addressing public meetings in Himachal Pradesh after inaugurating the strategically important Atal Tunnel, the Prime Minister also criticized the opposition’s protest against agricultural and labor law reforms. He said those parties had similar ideas but did not have the courage to implement them, as they focused on elections, while his government looked at the well-being of the country and the farmers.
“Nothing is more important to us than the defense of the country. But for a long time, the country has also witnessed an era in which the country’s defense interests were compromised. The country’s air force kept demanding a modern fighter plane, while they kept opening and closing files after files, and they kept playing with those files, “said Prime Minister Modi in Rohtang after opening the tunnel.
The 9.02 km Atal tunnel reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km and travel time by up to five hours. It has been listed as the longest road tunnel in the world, built at a cost of more than 3,000 million rupees.
Prime Minister Modi’s comments on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government take on prominence in the wake of the government’s repeated claim that the administration had delayed decisions on aircraft procurement Rafale fighter from France.
“Whether it’s ammunition, modern rifles, bulletproof vests, equipment used in cold weather conditions, everything was kept on hold,” he said, wondering about the “compulsion” and “pressure” behind such delays.
His government, the prime minister said, has deployed all its strength to develop border infrastructure, adding that never before has work been done on such a large scale, whether in the construction of roads, bridges or tunnels.
Prime Minister Modi said such border connectivity will help the security forces.
India and China are locked in a bitter five-month-long border confrontation in eastern Ladakh. Both sides have held a series of diplomatic and military talks to resolve the dispute without any progress.
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