PIR PANJAL RAILWAY TUNNEL

The Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel or Banihal railway tunnel is a 11.215 km (7 mile) railway tunnel located in Pir Panjal Range of middle Himalayas in Jammu and Kashmir, India north of Banihal town. It is India's longest and Asia's second longest railway tunnel. It is below the existing road tunnel, the Jawahar Tunnel. The tunnel has been constructed by HCC for IRCON , a PSU , as a part of its Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project with a cost of 1672 crores.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi flagged off the first train from Banihal, a town in Ramban district of the Jammu region, to Qazigund in the Kashmir valley, passing through a tunnel in the Pir Panchal range on june 26.

They enjoyed the 12-minute ride to Qazigund with 100 students, mostly girls, of the Banihal Higher Secondary School, and made the 17.8-km ride back to Banihal, passing through the tunnel, the second longest in Asia. Those who accompanied them were Governor N.N. Vohra, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge and Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

The train services will be run between Banhilal-Baramulla    in north Kashmir from june 27.