Lack of safety standards will hamper tunnel safety audit in India

In the wake of the tunnel disaster at Uttarakhand, while the central government has decided to conduct a safety audit of 29 under-construction tunnels in India, it turns out that there is no dedicated safety unit with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for such projects. The position is similar with the other large road and tunnel building organisation, the Border Roads Organisation.

Neither has the Comptroller and Auditor General apparently conducted any audit ever to assess safety issues in such projects, satisfying itself with only checks on the money spent in the projects. In fact, India does not