Eight days after the collapse of the Silkyara tunnel, efforts are underway to drill a vertical hole from the top of the hill under which 41 workers have been trapped for over a week "with limited food and communication."
The headcount of the stuck labourers went up by one on Saturday, embarrassing officials and annoying relatives of the workers. The 41st labourer was identified as Deepak Kumar, a resident of Gijas Tola in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.
The tunnel is part of the Char Dham all-weather road project initiated by the Narendra Modi government.
The 4.5-km tunnel is being constructed between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri portion of the National Highway as part of the Char Dham road scheme.
Rescue workers in the collapsed tunnel in Uttarkashi district had worked on Saturday to install a third machine to pierce past this rubble, behind which 41 workers are estimated to be sealed.
The Navayuga Engineering Company Limited is responsible for carrying out the tunnel’s construction.
According to reports in The Wire, Navayug, previously linked to the TDP government found itself in crosshairs of the Jagan government in Andhra Pradesh with multiple offices of the conglomerate coming under income tax raids in 2018 for violating income tax rules and also laundering money.
News reports have underlined that the Adani group had been eyeing the Krishnapatnam Port Company in Andhra Pradesh for several years before it bought a major chunk of the stake from Navayuga.
It was in July 2020, that the Competition Commission of India under the Union Ministry of Finance gave its consent to the Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones to buy out a 75% stake in that port from Navayuga. The remaining 25% was taken over in 2021, says a report in The Wire.
The tunnel collapsed around 5. 30 am last Sunday. One week on, as the hours ticked by, the desperation of families waiting outside has mounted.
While families back home and those gathered at the mouth of the tunnel counted the hours, officials waged their frantic battle against time as they weighed the various options available to them.
(With inputs from The wire, PTI, ENS)