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

Makwanpur Makwanpur District (; ), in Bagmati Province, earlier a part of Narayani Zone, is one of the List of districts of Nepal, seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The city of Hetauda serves as the district headquarters and also as the provincial headquart ...

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

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

and

Bhimphedi Bhimphedi (), is a Village development committee (Nepal), 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. Bhim ...

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 i ...

, in the trade route between

Kathmandu Kathmandu () is the capital and largest city of Nepal, situated in the central part of the country within the Kathmandu Valley. As per the 2021 Nepal census, it has a population of 845,767 residing in 105,649 households, with approximately 4 mi ...

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 other part of Raxaul is Mehsi where litchi ...

. 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 or NH01 (previously: H01) (), 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 th ...

in the outskirts of

Hetauda Hetauda (, ) is a sub-metropolitan city in 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 a majority (105 out of 110) ...

, and efforts are ongoing to conserve the remaining structure.

History

The 13th Prime Minister of Nepal

Chandra Shumsher Jang Bahadur Rana Field-Marshal His Highness 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 ...

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 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 (), also referred to as the Gorkhali Army (; see ''Gurkha, Gorkhas''), formally known as "Royal Nepal Army" is the Ground warfare, land Military branch, service branch of the Nepalese Armed Forces, Nepali Armed Forces. After t ...

blocked the tunnel during the

Maoist insurgency in Nepal Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...

. Some parts of the tunnel collapsed during the

April 2015 Nepal earthquake The April 2015 Nepal earthquake (also known as the Gorkha earthquake) killed 8,962 people and injured 21,952 across the countries of Nepal, India, China and Bangladesh. It occurred at on Saturday 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of Moment magni ...

, 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