German firm bags Himachal road consultancy project

Bernard Ingenieure, a German multinational company, has beaten a US and an Austrian company to get the consultancy contract for designing and preparing a detailed project report for three major road tunnels in Himachal Pradesh, officials said.

With a financial bid of Rs 6.25 crore, Bernard Ingenieure had the lowest bid edging out the Austrian joint venture Geoconsult Seon & Euro Studio and the US company AECOM. The company has been given a period of one year for preparing the three projects.

The Infrastructure Development Board is the nodal agency for public-private partnership of the three tunnels which will be built at a cost of Rs 650 crore. Once these tunnels are completed they will considerably reduce the distance between several destinations.

 

The longest tunnel will be bored through the Dhauladhar mountain ranges in the Kangra valley till the Chamba valley.The length of this tunnel is almost five kms.This will reduce the distance by 200 kms between Uttrala and Holi.

The second tunnel is proposed to be built in the Mandi district, this will reduce the distance between Jogindernagar and Kullu by almost 70 kms.

Another tunnel measuring 1.2 km long will reduce the distance by 7 kms in the area.