Zojila, June 10 -- As the Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari pushed the button at Meenamarg in Drass, a blast deep inside the 13.15 km tunnel carved through the younger Himalayas in the past five years between J&K and Ladakh brought down the final wall of 2.5 metres of stone and created history.

With the two ends of Zojila tunnel finally connected following the breakthrough blast on Tuesday, India successfully completed excavation of its highest and longest single tube bi directional road tunnel at a height of 11,578 feet.

"Today is the golden day for India's infrastructure development. Around 14 km in length, the tunnel is state of the art. This is not only Asia's longest but also at number one place across the world, as I hav...