NDA (I) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 141 of 150

Correct — A, It is located at an altitude of 5,000 feet. The height is wrong by a factor of two. The Rohtang tunnel runs at a general altitude of about 3,000 to 3,100 metres, which is roughly 9,800 to 10,200 feet, and its whole claim to distinction rests on that height — it is described as the world's longest single-tube highway tunnel above 10,000 feet. A tunnel at 5,000 feet in this part of Himachal Pradesh would be down in the Kullu valley, nowhere near the Pir Panjal crest it was bored through. The other three statements were accurate when the paper was set: the Border Roads Organisation was building it, with a joint venture of Afcons and Strabag; it was designed to give the Lahaul valley road access through the winter, when the Rohtang pass above it is snowbound; and it shortens the Manali-Leh road by about 46 kilometres, which the stem rounds to approximately 50.

• (b)It will provide all-year connectivity to Lahaul and Spiti Valley — This was the stated purpose of the project and the reason it was sanctioned, so it is not the statement being sought. The Rohtang pass itself closes under snow for several months a year, and the tunnel bypasses it so that Keylong and the Lahaul valley stay reachable through the winter. One qualification is worth carrying — the tunnel opens the Lahaul side, but Spiti is reached onward over the Kunzum pass, which still closes in winter, and Ladakh needs further tunnels beyond Keylong.
• (c)The tunnel is being built by the Border Roads Organization — Correct as printed. The BRO, the tri-service agency under the Ministry of Defence that builds and maintains roads in the border areas, was the executing agency, working with a joint venture of Afcons Infrastructure and Strabag.
• (d)It will reduce the length of the Leh-Manali highway by approximately 50 km — Correct as printed. The old route from Manali to Keylong through Gramphu ran 116 kilometres and took five to six hours; the route through the tunnel is 71 kilometres and takes about two. A saving of roughly 45 to 46 kilometres sits comfortably inside the stem's 'approximately 50'.

The tunnel runs under the Rohtang pass, a saddle on the Pir Panjal range at about 3,978 metres that carries the road from the Kullu valley into Lahaul. Snow closes the pass for a large part of the year and cuts Lahaul off from the rest of Himachal Pradesh, which is a civilian problem and a military one, since the same road is the western approach to Ladakh. The tunnel is a single tube about nine kilometres long with an escape tunnel beneath the carriageway. Work began in June 2010, it was named the Atal Tunnel in December 2019 after Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and it was inaugurated in October 2020.

Anchor this to the exam. In April 2018 the tunnel was still under construction, which is why every option is phrased in the future or the continuous tense, and a candidate answering then had to judge the claims against the project as announced. Since then it has been completed and opened, so the tense of the whole item has changed; the answer has not, because the altitude was wrong at the time and remains wrong. The one record claim worth stating carefully is the qualified one. This is not the world's longest highway tunnel — the Laerdal tunnel in Norway, at 24.5 kilometres, is far longer — but the world's longest single-tube highway tunnel above 10,000 feet, and that qualifier is exactly what an examiner strips out to make a false statement.

• The tunnel's general altitude is about 3,000 to 3,100 metres, roughly 9,800 to 10,200 feet, not 5,000 feet.
• It is about nine kilometres long and was built by the Border Roads Organisation with an Afcons-Strabag joint venture.
• It cuts the Manali to Keylong road from 116 km to 71 km, and the journey from five or six hours to about two.
• Work began in June 2010; it was renamed the Atal Tunnel in 2019 and inaugurated in October 2020.
• Its record is the qualified one — the world's longest single-tube highway tunnel above 10,000 feet, not the longest highway tunnel in the world.

• Accepting a round-numbered altitude without checking it against the pass above; the Rohtang pass alone is close to 4,000 metres.
• Repeating an unqualified 'world's longest highway tunnel' claim, which is false.
• Extending year-round access from Lahaul to Spiti or to Ladakh; the tunnel alone does not deliver either.

NDA sets infrastructure projects as NOT-correct statement items, and the false statement is usually a number — a height, a length or a saving.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Atal Tunnel bypasses which Himalayan pass?

  • (a)Zoji La
  • (b)Rohtang
  • (c)Baralacha La
  • (d)Kunzum La

  Answer(b) Rohtang — the pass on the Pir Panjal that closes under snow for much of the year.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Atal Tunnel was built by

  • (a)the National Highways Authority of India
  • (b)the Border Roads Organisation
  • (c)the Indian Railways Construction Company
  • (d)the Central Public Works Department

  Answer(b) the Border Roads Organisation — the tri-service agency that builds roads in the border areas.