DUSHANBE, February 9, Asia-Plus -- Concrete work on the 5-kilometer Anzob tunnel linking the Tajik capital with roads leading to northern Tajikistan is ongoing, Habib Davlatov, engineer-in-chief with the directorate for being-built enterprises of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

According to him, they have to date reinforced the tunnel’s sections prone to rock falls.  “It remains to concrete 3,890 meters of the tunnel arch,” said Davlatov, “1,940 meters from the northern portal and 1,850 meters from the southern portal.”  

He noted that concreting and electrification works on the tunnel are expected to be completed by the time fixed, in April this year.  

Sobir International, an Iranian construction company, began work on the Anzob tunnel to link northern and southern Tajikistan on December 25, 2004.  The project was scheduled to take 20 months,  but it was allowed that completion depends on how the work is organized and the hardness of the rock.

The tunnel is located some 80 kilometers outside Dushanbe.  Iran has provided $21,500 in long-term loan and a $10 million grant in financing for the $40 million project to complete the tunnel, which is considered to be a turning point in Tajik-Iranian relations. 

Excavation works on the Anzob tunnel were completed in March 2006.  On March 23, Tajik Deputy Prime Minister, Asadullo Ghulomov, and top managers of Iran’s Sobir International attended a ceremony that was held on this occasion.  A group of representatives from Tajikistan and Iran drove by a car through the tunnel from its southern to the northern portal, where they were met by residents of the Ayni district.

The presidents of Tajikistan and Iran, Emomali Rahmonov and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, inaugurated the tunnel on July 26, 2006. 

We will recall that the construction of the “Anzob” tunnel began in 1989 but because of destabilization of the situation in the republic the construction was suspended and resumed only in 2003.  In May 2003, Tajikistan and Iran signed in Tehran a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on joint construction of the Anzob tunnel in Tajikistan.  Iran’s Sobir International won a tender for the construction of the tunnel.  

Once the Anzob tunnel becomes operational, it will not only facilitate transportation and direct north-south transit within Tajikistan in the winter season but also drop the transit time by four to five hours.  A regular traffic via the Anzob tunnel is expected to open in April this year.