Coordinated efforts are being made to rescue the 40 workers trapped inside a tunnel in Uttarakhand for over 48 hours.

The rescue teams have made little headway in cutting down the rocks that fell over a 200-meter area, trapping the workers inside the tunnel.

Rescuers are trying to create an escape passage to reach the trapped workers and the distance is about 40 metres. Officials said around 21 metres of slab blocking the tunnel has been removed and a 19 metres passage is yet to be cleared.

The team had initially been able to cut through 30 meters of rocks but some soil fell again, so they have been able to clear 21 meters.

The loose debris, which is delaying the rescue operations, is being stabilised and excavation with shotcreting for 40 meters of the collapsed tunnel has started.

Shotcreting is a term for spraying concrete at high velocity over a structure.

The rescue teams are planning to push a pipe with a 900 mm diameter using a hydraulic jack by boring a hole into the heap of debris to evacuate the trapped workers. Rescuers will use auger machines to drill a hole in the debris.

All the material and machinery needed for the daring operation has been brought to the site. Experts from the irrigation department have also joined the operation.

Videos from the spot showed huge piles of concrete blocking the tunnel, twisted metal bars from its broken roof buried in rubble creating more obstacles for rescue workers – who are mostly migrants from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

The workers got trapped in the tunnel on Sunday morning after the under construction structure on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri National Highway. 

The workers – who have been trapped in a buffer zone – are unharmed and are being supplied with food and oxygen through water pipelines. “They have a buffer of around 400 metres to walk and breathe,” a Disaster response official said.

The rescue teams have successfully established communication with the workers with Walkie-Talkies. Initial contact was made via a note on a scrap of paper, but later rescuers managed to connect using radio handsets.

The 4.5-km tunnel on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri National Highway, which will join Silkyara and Dandalgaon in Uttarkashi, is part of the Chardham project. Once finished, it is expected to cut down the distance by 26 km.

Initial reports suggest that a landslide in the region triggered the collapse, however, officials say that investigation is on to ascertain the exact reason for the collapse.

India is considering tax cuts on the imports of completely-built units of electric vehicles, for a period of up to five years, as it tries to entice the likes of Tesla Inc. to sell and eventually make its cars in the country.

The government is working on an electric vehicle policy that would allow international car manufacturers to import battery-powered vehicles on concessional duty rates if they commit to eventually building them in India, people familiar with the matter said.

A final decision is yet to be taken on the policy’s contours, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. Spokespeople from India’s heavy industries and commerce ministries did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

In 2021, the Austin-based EV manufacturer had sought duty cuts on import of electric vehicles. It was hoping to have the rates reduced to 40% from the current range of 70%-100% for its vehicles, depending on their import value.

Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is likely to meet Trade Minister Piyush Goyal later this week to discuss the company’s plans to set up a factory in the South Asian nation. Mr Goyal is in San Francisco to attend the ministerial engagements of Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

Tesla is seeking to break into one of the world’s most promising auto markets where the demand for electric vehicles is rising among the country’s burgeoning middle class. For India, Tesla’s investment would aid the government’s push to increase the share of manufacturing in the nation’s GDP while also creating jobs.

India’s electric car market is currently at a nascent stage with EVs accounting for just 1.3% of the total passenger vehicles sold last year, according to BloombergNEF. The adoption of EVs in the country has been held back by the high cost of cars, a dearth of options and lack of charging stations.

Opening up the EV segment could speed up the adoption of cleaner transport in a country that currently has the world’s most toxic air. The government launched a $3.1 billion incentive program in 2021 to boost local EV production.

Separately, India is also considering reducing import taxes on some electric vehicles from the UK as part of negotiations with Britain over a free-trade deal.

Cracks are now more prominent in the Opposition’s INDIA alliance with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav questioning why the previous Congress-led governments did not conduct caste census when they were in power.

Mr Yadav’s comment highlights the differences between the two parties that are part of the mega Opposition front seeking to put up a united fight against the BJP in next year’s national elections.

The previous governments did not act on this due to their faulty policies, he told ANI in Satna in election-bound Madhya Pradesh and taunted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his “X-ray” remark over the caste census demand.

At a rally yesterday, Mr Gandhi reiterated his call for caste census and termed the exercise an “X-ray” that would give details of various communities in the country. Asked about this, Mr Yadav said the Congress’s demand for a caste census is a “miracle”.

#WATCH | Satna, Madhya Pradesh: On Rahul Gandhi’s statement, SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav says, “…Congress is the party which did not conduct caste census after independence… When all the parties in the Lok Sabha were demanding a caste census, they did not conduct a caste census.… pic.twitter.com/aYEaUU9SwT

— ANI (@ANI) November 13, 2023

“X-ray was the need of that time. Now we have MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and CT (computed tomography) scan. The disease has now spread. If this problem was solved back then, such a gap wouldn’t have existed in the society today,” he said mocking Mr Gandhi.

“The biggest miracle is the Congress is also talking about caste census. Those who are talking about X-rays are the same people who stopped the caste census after Independence,” he quipped.

Mr Yadav slammed the Congress for not conducting caste census after India attained independence. “When Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav), Sharad Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and parties from South India raised the demand in Lok Sabha, the Congress refused to do it,” he said.

“Why do they want to conduct caste census today? Because they know that their traditional vote bank is not with them. But the backward classes, Dalit, and adivasis know that they had betrayed them after Independence,” he added.

Mr Yadav has been training his guns at the Congress lately and has also claimed that the grand old party does not want to ally with his outfit after their relations soured over seat-sharing for the November 17 Madhya Pradesh elections.

Last week, he said the Congress did not implement the Mandal Commission recommendations and had opposed the caste census. In another instance, he told a rally in Madhya Pradesh that neither Congress nor BJP have done anything for the poor and farmers when they were in power in the state.

However, despite the signs of strain, he told NDTV last month that his party was still a part of the INDIA bloc.