Building Indian Infrastructure: Perils Of Tunnel Projects

These events draw attention to important weaknesses in engineering evaluations, disaster response systems, and safety procedures — all of which still lag far behind in nations with comparable aspirations for major infrastructure development.

High Risks Of Underground Projects

Tunnel disasters expose fundamental problems in planning, execution and regulatory control rather than only technical ones. India is rapidly building Metro systems, hydropower tunnels and water diversion projects among other underground facilities. Many of these initiatives, meanwhile, travel through geologically sensitive areas, which increases their vulnerability to collapses.

Part of an irrigation project meant to redirect Krishna River water, the SLBC tunnel is situated on stony ground likely to be unstable and vulnerable to tremors. Mostly in hydropower projects, similar situations resulted in around 28 tunnel-related deaths in Himachal Pradesh between 2015 and 2023.

Insufficient safety precautions endanger thousands of employees. According to a 2022 labor survey, 85 per cent of Indian subterranean construction workers lacked official emergency protocol training.

Mostly from Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh, many labourers pick up these dangerous vocations in response to financial difficulty. Unlike nations like Norway and Switzerland, where tunnel workers go months of specialised training before being deployed, they frequently pay low wages, lack job stability, and little safety gear.

Why Do These Catastrophes Continue?

The recurrent collapses — like the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) disaster — are signs of a more general systemic crisis rather than isolated technical faults. Although tunneling is always dangerous, many of these disasters result from avoidable mistakes in geological evaluation, law enforcement and project responsibility.

According to statistics, almost half of India's hydro and Metro tunnel projects fall short of minimum safety criteria, therefore endangering the personnel involved. 

By contrast, nations like Germany and Japan with extensive tunneling knowledge enforce strict contractor responsibility, fund predictive modeling and regulate real-time geological monitoring.

But in India, tight deadlines and cost-cutting policies sometimes take front stage, raising the risk of collapses. Deeper study of how laws are broken, why monitoring systems remain inadequate, and how scattered contracting systems produce dangerous gaps in responsibility helps one to understand why these calamities still occur.

1. Insufficient Geological Risk Evaluation

India's approach to tunnel developments sometimes gives cost and speed first priority over geological readiness. Common causes of collapses have been insufficient studies of rock stability, poor predictive modeling, and hurried feasibility reports. The geo-technical evaluations of the SLBC project, according to experts, were out-of-date, therefore raising the failure risk.

2. Insufficient Government Control

Enforcement of safety rules under the Mines Act (1952) and the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act (1996) remains poor. After a 2023 safety assessment by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) revealed major flaws in tunnel building projects, a national audit of 29 under-construction tunnels was ordered. Among the issues were some projects without defined emergency exit plans, weak fire safety precautions, and poor ventilation systems.

3. Creditability Contracting's gaps

Most tunnel projects call for several layers of subcontractors, which makes safety compliance challenging. Many subcontractors operate without official contracts or insurance, so exposing themselves to risk should an accident arise. By imposing strict obligation on the primary contractor, nations like Germany and Japan, on contrast, guarantee more responsibility.

Why Do Efforts at Rescue Take Such Time?

Once again highlighting India's lack of readiness for subsurface disaster response is the continuous SLBC fall-off. India lacks specialist rapid-response teams furnished with robotic search devices, high-speed drilling rigs, and real-time geotechnical monitoring systems, unlike countries with advanced tunneling experience like China, Switzerland or Chile.

1. Complicated Geological Obstacles

SLBC rescuers have battled to drill through more than 200 meters of rocky ground without setting off subsequent collapses. Similar challenges arose in the 2023 Silkyara tunnel rescue, where hand digging and lack of horizontal borehole access postponed the operation for weeks.

2. Postponed mobilisation of tools

India lacks a specific subterranean rescue task team. Different states must obtain drilling rigs, ground-penetrating radars, and oxygen supply systems, therefore wasting vital hours or days. Chile, on the other hand, created a tailored rapid-response system following the 2010 San José mine collapse to enable more quick mobilisation in next events.

3. Insufficient Real-Time Communication with Workers Trapped

Globally best-practice models give stranded personnel radio communication and emergency oxygen supplies within hours. Rescue crews in India can lack communication with workers for days, which fuels confusion and panic.

What Needs To Change?

Geotechnical engineer at Indian Institute of Science, Ramesh Gupta, contends India needs real-time seismic monitoring for tunnel developments. "Although the technology is there, it is hardly mandated. Preceding a collapse, real-time subsurface imaging can identify unstable zones."

Labour rights campaigner and independent researcher from Bangalore, Meera Pillai, notes worker exploitation. "Tunnels fall, but so do workers' families' lives. These events ruin whole towns without appropriate insurance and compensation systems.”

How Can India Avoid These Tragedies?

India has to prioritise worker safety, regulatory compliance, and disaster readiness if it is to take quick and thorough steps to stop next tunnel disasters. Using currently in use technologies like LiDAR and seismic sensors — real-time geological monitoring — helps identify rock instabilities before they cause collapses.

With mandated escape routes, fire-resistant tunnel linings, and ventilation backups needed in every project, strengthening safety compliance is also equally vital. The government audit for 2024 found that 42 per cent of Indian Metro tunnels lacked working emergency exits, underscoring the immediate need for more thorough control.

India also needs to create specialist rapid-response teams with robotic drills, oxygen injectors, and thermal imaging cameras — akin to China's committed tunnel rescue teams able to mobilise in less than 12 hours. Through increasing fines and blacklisting repeat offenders, holding main contractors responsible for safety breaches would also help to lower negligence and enhance adherence to safety procedures.

Moreover, guaranteeing better worker protections — such as organised safety training, risk allowances, and required insurance — will help workers, many of whom come from economically sensitive backgrounds.

Countries like Norway demand thorough health coverage for subterranean workers, thereby establishing a benchmark India has to try to reach. Without these vital measures, tunnel collapses will keep endangering lives, so systematic improvements become absolutely necessary.

National Priority

The SLBC catastrophe is simply another sobering reminder of the hazards India's subterranean workers must endure. Given that over 20 major tunnel projects in development, it is impossible to overestimate the need for safety changes.

Protecting those who create India's infrastructure becomes non-negotiable as it grows. Tunnel collapses will keep claiming lives without technological improvements, legislative changes, and more responsibility; workers and their families will be left to pay for systematic mistakes.