New Route To Kailash Mansarover Through Uttarakhand

According to Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, it’ll be possible for Indian pilgrims to go to Kailash Mansarovar straight from Uttarakhand by the conclusion of this year. It has been possible to complete approximately 85% of the work right now. This route is going to free us from depending on China and Nepal. This new road consists of 16% land journeys in China and 84% Indian roads. There is no doubt that it is a massive development.

Before, it was imperative for the pilgrims to take a difficult and long trek for five days via this route, or they were forced to travel via China and Nepal. However, right now it’ll become a thing of the past since it will take only one day to get to Kailash Mansarover by car after the completion of the road.

Everything you need to know regarding this highway project

It is the Border Roads Organization (BRO), which has started the work on this particular project in the year 2018, and it is constructed at a cost of 440 crores of INR. The distance of Pithoragarh from Delhi is approximately 490 km, and it connects to the remaining part of the country by the Chardham Highway project, which is 900 km in length.

The location of Lipulekh is at an altitude of 17,000 feet at the border of India, China, and Nepal. The road’s last 5-kilometer segment is bordered by a big river on the right and by steep hills on the left. It was quite tough to do the construction in this area, and in excess of 50 pieces of equipment for construction fell into the river while the construction was going on. It was also quite challenging for the Border Roads Organization to arrange such a large labor force to oversee the construction process, particularly in the far-flung areas since the pandemic situation was prevailing at the time all over the country. There were many flash floods on the Pithoragarh-Tawaghat-Ghatiabagarh road site during the last several years, which resulted in lots of damage. Incidentally, the mountains are almost vertical and have hard rock in the first 20 km, because of which there was a loss of many lives and as many as 25 pieces of equipment had been badly damaged since they fell into Kali Nadi.

Kailash Mansarover is only 16 km from Lipulekh. As a result, it happens to be the easiest route to get to the location for Indians compared to other routes through Nepal, which are much longer.

The new route has three stretches

This new route mentioned in this post consists of three stretches. The initial stretch covers 107.6 km from Pithoragarh to Tawaghat; the second stretch happens to be a 19.5-km single lane from Tawaghat to Ghatiabgarh; and the third stretch is at the China border from Ghatiabgarh to Lipulekh Pass. It has a length of 80 km, and one can cover it on foot only.