Nitin Gadkari wants Auli to turn into tourist spot along the lines of Switzerland's Davos

Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, stated on Friday, July 9, that he wants to make Auli, a hill station in Uttarakhand, a tourist destination for people from all over the world. Gadkari further stated at a virtual event that he intends to create a landscape similar to the world-famous Davos in Switzerland between the 18-km Zojila tunnel in Ladakh and the Z-Morh tunnel in Jammu & Kashmir.

Gadkari wants to make Auli like Davos

"We want to develop Auli in Uttrakhand near Badrinath and Kedarnath as an attraction for tourists across the world," he said. Auli, India's leading ski resort destination, is a small but picture-perfect village.

Auli's skiing slopes, which were originally built as a paramilitary outpost, are popular with both visitors and pros. Auli conducts a number of snow adventure events during the winter. Auli, which stands at roughly 2,800 metres and is surrounded by acres of oak and coniferous forests, offers panoramic views of some of India's highest peaks, including Nanda Devi, the country's second-highest mountain (7,816m).

Davos, a prominent ski resort in the Swiss Alps, also hosts the annual World Economic Forum meeting. The Zojila Pass on the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh National Highway is located at an elevation of 11,578 feet and is closed during the winter due to severe snowfall.

Gadkari's vision for hill stations in India

Gadkari announced the start of construction on the Zojila tunnel in October of last year, expressing optimism that the key project, which would enable year-round connectivity between Srinagar and Leh, will be finished ahead of time before the next Lok Sabha elections. The project will take six years to complete. The tunnel, which is expected to be Asia's longest, will cut travel time on the Srinagar-Leh segment of NH-1 from 3 hours to 15 minutes with avalanche-free navigation.

In 2017, Gadkari had said that he wants to create India’s own Davos in the hilly terrains of the Himalayas. In a statement, he had said, "After I came here, a thought has come to my mind. I’m yet to start any work on it. We are working on a 1,000-km new road for Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri of Rs 12,000 crore which would be all-season roads. That will be a historical thing with tunnels etc. After coming to Davos, I felt why can’t we develop a township like this in that area, where people will come in sub-zero temperatures and which will have hotels and tourism facilities and will even go to Mansarovar."

(with inputs from PTI)

Picture Credit: AP/PTI