The Churia Tunnel ( ne, चुरिया सुरुङ्ग) is a -long highway tunnel carved through the churia hill between

Makwanpur Makwanpur District( ne, मकवानपुर जिल्ला; , a part of Bagmati Province, earlier a part of Narayani Zone, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Hetauda as its district headquarter, as well ...

and Bara of Nepal. It was constructed connecting the country's first motorable road between

Amlekhganj Amlekhganj (''also'' Amlekhgunj) (Nepali:अमलेखगंज) is a town and Village Development Committee (now Sub Metropolitan City) in Bara District in the Narayani Zone of south-eastern Nepal. At the time of the 2011 Nepal census it had ...

in the

terai The Terai or Tarai is a lowland region in northern India and southern Nepal that lies south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas, the Sivalik Hills, and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. This lowland belt is characterised by tall grasslands, scr ...

and

Bhimphedi Bhimphedi ( ne, भीमफेदी), is a village located in the Bhimphedi Rural Municipality of Makwanpur District of Bagmati Province of Nepal. This village is known for its bazaar (marketplace). Bismuth ore is mined here. Etymology The wo ...

settlement of Makwanpur, the point of entry into Kathmandu which served as a

dry port A dry port (sometimes referred to as an inland port) is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport, operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations. In addition to their role in ...

, in the trade route between

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

and

Raxaul Raxaul is a sub-divisional town in the East Champaran district of the Indian state of Bihar. It is situated at the India-Nepal border with Birgunj city (Nepal). Raxaul is a major railway junction. The Indian border town of Raxaul has become one ...

. It was the country's first highway tunnel. Constructed in 1917 to reduce the travel time between the Indian border and Bhimphedi it has since fallen into disrepair. The entrance lies at the premises of the Churia (Churiya) Temple off

Mahendra Highway Mahendra Highway (), also called East-West Highway () runs across the Terai geographical region of Nepal, from Mechinagar in the east to Bhim Datta in the west, cutting across the entire width of the country. It is the longest highway in Nepal a ...

in the outskirts of

Hetauda Hetauda ( ne, हेटौडा, ) is a sub-metropolitan city in the Makwanpur District of Bagmati Province in central Nepal. It is the administrative headquarters of the Makwanpur District and the capital of Bagmati Province as declared by m ...

, and efforts are ongoing to conserve the remaining structure.

History

The 13th Prime Minister of Nepal

Chandra Shumsher Jang Bahadur Rana Field-Marshal Maharaja Sri Teen Chandra Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (8 July 1863 – 26 November 1929) was the Prime Minister of Nepal from the Rana dynasty. He served in this capacity from 27 June 1901 to his death in 1929, after he successfully ...

assigned Dilli Jung Thapa, the country's first civil engineering graduate, as project chief to construct the tunnel. The tunnel was originally constructed to reduce travel time for horse-drawn carriages and lorries traversing the distance between the Indian border and Bhimphedi. The cost to construct the tunnel is not clear; according to historians the unspent budget allocation was returned to the treasury. The tunnel has not been in use since construction of the "Pathlaiya-Hetauda road" (connecting

Pathlaiya Bara District ( ne, बारा जिल्ला ) is one of the seventy–seven districts of Nepal, located in the western part of the Madhesh Province. The district is third richest district in Nepal after Kathmandu and Morang with 3.3% sh ...

and

), and is presently unusable due to "decades of disuse and lack of maintenance". The city of Hetauda is working to conserve the tunnel, with efforts led by the Churia Mai Temple and Tunnel Conservation Committee. The chair of the committee, Prem Bomjan, while talking about the restoration, said: "The tunnel has been in a sorry state for a long time. People were concerned that a landslide might obliterate the whole structure if immediate steps are not taken towards its conservation". The Churia Tunnel was declared a site of historical importance by Hetauda Municipality. Future plans include erecting a statue of architect Dilli Jung Thapa near the site. The

Nepalese Army The Nepali Army ( ne, नेपाली सेना, translit=Nēpālī Sēnā), technically the Gorkhali Army ( ne, गोरखाली सेना, translit=Gōrakhālī Sēnā, label=none; see ''Gorkhas''), is the land service branch ...

blocked the tunnel during the

Maoist insurgency in Nepal Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Chi ...

. Some parts of the tunnel collapsed during the

April 2015 Nepal earthquake The April 2015 Nepal earthquake (also known as the Gorkha earthquake) killed 8,964 people and injured 21,952 more. It occurred at on Saturday, 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8 Mw or 8.1 Ms and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of X (''Extreme ...

, but the tunnel entrance is still intact. Dilli Jung Thapa's grandson Janak Jung Thapa, while talking about the current status of Nepal, said: "If only Nepal's planners had seen the potential and built more tunnels like this one, the country would have seen much more rapid development".

References

External links

*{{cite web, url =https://www.rabinsxp.com/blog/2017/06/churia-tunnel-first-tunnel-road-nepal-asia-built-1917.html , title = Churia Tunnel: The First Tunnel Road of Nepal & Asia Built in 1917 , date = 2017-06-18 , first = Lamichhane , last = Rabins , work = RabinsXP Road tunnels in Nepal Makwanpur District Tunnels completed in 1917 1917 establishments in Nepal Buildings and structures in Hetauda Buildings and structures in Bara District

History

See also

References

External links