Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari today approved construction of Chhatergala tunnel by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) which will link Lakhanpur with Doda via Basohli-Bani-Bhaderwah as a National Highway making it a run of just four hours. The approval was given by Gadkari at a high-level meeting in Srinagar chaired by him and attended among others by Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and senior officers of NHAI, NHIDCL and the J&K Government. An all-weather connectivity between Lakhanpur and district Doda via tourist spots of Basohli and Bani, in addition to reducing the travel time considerably and giving a boost to business, employment and revenue generation. Referring to the under construction Delhi-Katra Express Corridor, Dr. Jitendra Singh recalled that the Express Corridor had been approved after a lot of efforts and the effort began way back in 2015. There were initial delays, he said,because Punjab had also demanded a similar express corridor between Delhi and Amritsar, and finally after arriving at a compromise to have an express corridor between Delhi and Katra with stop-overs at Amritsar and Kathua, the project was finalized.
