ISLAMABAD, Jan 13 Eager to put behind the memories of tortuous days spent fighting the vagaries of nature completely cut-off from the outside world for almost five months each year, the long-awaited moment draws nearer for the people of Chitral to celebrate the opening of an all-weather land route to their scenic valley through the Lowari Tunnel.

As the first phase of the project completes on Wednesday with the meeting of tunnel being simultaneously dug in Chitral on the northern side and Dir district in the south, the 14,850 square kilometre valley of about 500,000 people nestling around the mighty Hindukush mountains integrates into the country for the first time in real geographical terms.

People in all parts of the district and Chitralis living in other parts of the country as well as abroad are celebrating the event as a thanksgiving day.

The district government has announced a public holiday on the occasion. Variety of programmes, including cultural shows, will be held in different parts of the valley as well in major cities where Chitralis live in large numbers.

The Rs8 billion rail tunnel will, however, be opened for regular traffic at the end of 2010. Work on the project started in October 2005 from the southern side, while former president Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the project in Chitral in July 2006.

The idea to build the tunnel dated back to the early 1890s when the British wanted to have an all-weather access road to the then princely state after having a foothold in the area as part of their `Great Game` in the region. However, the proposal was quickly dropped after the imperialist power feared that the tunnel could pave the way for the Red Army to infiltrate into the Indian subcontinent.

After independence, the government of Pakistan prepared the first feasibility report on the project in 1955; however, no progress was made afterwards due to shortage of funds and lack of technical expertise.

After coming to power, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sanctioned the project and construction work started in 1975. By 1977, the Frontier Works Organisation in collaboration with the Lowari Tunnel Organisation had completed digging of up to 500 metres from Dir side.

However, with the then coalition government of Maulana Mufti Mehmud and Abdul Wali Khan in the NWFP at loggerheads with Mr Bhutto, the project fell prey to their political discord as the former opposed the project terming it wastage of money.

Soon, work on the site was abandoned after spending millions of rupees. With the passage of time the cost of the project continued to escalate.

In 1994, the National Assembly was informed that the estimated cost of the project had touched Rs3 billion mark from the only Rs500 million in 1975.

However, the people of the valley continued to raise the issue at every forum and demanded the successive governments to construct the tunnel to end their communication-related problems.

During the Shandur Festival in 2001, former president Pervez Musharraf promised that the project would be undertaken to provide an all-weather route to the district besides linking the country with the Central Asian states.

On June 10, 2003, at the inaugural ceremony of Kohat Tunnel, then NWFP governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah urged Gen Musharraf to fulfil the longstanding demand of the people of Chitral by sanctioning the construction of the Lowari Tunnel.

Gen Musharraf asked the NHA to take up the project on a priority basis, adding the expertise used in Kohat should be utilised for the construction of the Lowari Tunnel.

The NHA awarded the contracts of the Rs7.9 billion project to Korea`s Sambu company and two Pakistani firms. The project was scheduled to be completed in two phases in four years. The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved the project on July 27, 2004.

The consultancy and PC-I were prepared by a Swedish-Austrian company - Geo Consult-Typsa - while supervision of the construction work was assigned to Dr Johann Golsar of the famous NATM system of tunnelling.