Twelve kilometres and about forty-five minutes. That is what the Sungal tunnel takes off the Jammu–Poonch run, and as of this week you can actually drive through it.
The Border Roads Organisation opened the 2.79-km tunnel to traffic on 16 August, ahead of a schedule that had pointed at 22 August. It bores through the Kalidhar range on the Jammu–Akhnoor–Rajouri–Poonch road, replacing a climb over the ridge that has never coped well with rain.
Before you point the car at it
This is a partial opening, and the restrictions are the whole story right now:
Light and Medium Motor Vehicles only — cars, jeeps, tempo travellers. No heavy or goods vehicles yet.
Maximum vehicle width three metres.
Open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Daylight hours only.
BRO has said the tunnel will progressively take all vehicle classes, and move to round-the-clock running once safety assessments are done. Until then, if you are on a bus, you are still going over the top.
Why a tunnel here, and why it took five years
The Kalidhar stretch is the sort of road that turns a routine journey into a gamble in monsoon — exposed, slide-prone, and slow even in good weather. Boring under it removes the ridge from the equation entirely.
Work began in September 2021 under BRO's Project Sampark. The excavation breakthrough came in May 2024, and the finished tunnel has cost roughly ₹600 crore.
What it changes for you
If you are one of the many students in Jammu who go home to Rajouri or Poonch on long weekends and semester breaks, this is the first meaningful cut to that journey in years. Forty-five minutes is roughly the difference between arriving in daylight and arriving after dark on a road where that matters.
It compounds, too. The Jammu–Poonch road already carries the Akhnoor belt's daily traffic, and every hour taken off it makes a day trip from the city a more realistic idea than it was in July.
The daylight-only rule cuts the other way, though. An 8 p.m. closure means a late start from Jammu still puts you on the old alignment, so plan the outbound leg early rather than assuming the tunnel is there whenever you arrive.
One sensible caveat for the next few weeks: this is monsoon, the rest of the route is unchanged, and a tunnel does nothing about a slide two kilometres past its mouth. Check road status before setting off, whatever the tunnel is doing.
Sources: The Tribune — BRO's 2.79-km tunnel connecting Jammu to Poonch opens for traffic; Greater Kashmir — Sungal tunnel partially opened; Greater Kashmir — Sungal tunnel opens, cuts travel distance.
