Srinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the Nashri- Chenani tunnel as the new Baghe-e-Rekha, the line of fate, and said, nine more tunnel are coming up to connect hearts. He was speaking to a public meeting soon after the 9 kms long Rs 3720 crore tunnel was formally thrown open Sunday late afternoon.
“It is just not a long channel that will shorten the distance between Jammu ad Srinagar but it is a long jump to prosperity,” Modi said. “It is just not a tunnel between Udhampur and Ramban but it is the Bagh-e-Rekha, line of fate of the people of Kashmir, its farmers whose produce would rot when the road gets closed.”
Modi said the tourists are highly infrastructure conscious. If they trap of Patni Top for five days, they rarely revisit and this tunnel will make that past. “It will write a new history for tourism,” he said.
Prime Minister said while Delhi arranged the resources, the youth of J&K worked on it and the fragrance of their sweat is an overwhelming feeling in the tunnel. “I want to tell the youth of Kashmir about the power of the stone,” Modi said. “On one side were youth who worked for 1000 days day and night, cut the stones and create the tunnel. Then there was another group of youth who were pelting stones.”
He addressed the youth of Kashmir directly. “You have two options before you. One is tourism and another is terrorism,” Modi said. “For last forty years, innocents people were killed and we lost youth but nothing changed excepting making Kashmir bloodied. Had the same time being given to tourism, entire world have been sitting at the feet of a prosperous Kashmir.”
Modi said that Government of India is serious in taking the growth and development story forward. Of the Rs 80,000 package announced by him, Modi said half of it is on ground. “It takes years for packages to get translated into reality but that was not the case in this case,” he said. Modi said J&K has the fastest growing per capita income. He talked of his frequent travels to Kashmir, his stay and interactions in Kashmir and the significance of sufi culture.
Invoking Vajpayee doctrine, Modi said his name crops up every time J&K is discussed. “Vajpayee is being remembered every time because of Kashmiriyat Insaniyat and Jamhoriyat. On basis of this doctrine, we will take development to the next level.”
Modi said the people “occupying” the other Kashmir are unable to manage themselves so India will develop this part to showcase how the “those occupying are destroying them”.
Prime Minister Modi said the tunnel is a major message from Delhi that India is keen on ecological and environmental issues. “Had this tunnel being laid somewhere else in India, we might not have been so sensitive to ecology,” Modi said. “But it is in the lap of Himalayas and this tunnel explains our resolve that we meant protection of fragile ecology.”
