For residents of Sonamarg, winter once brought a familiar decision: leave before the road disappeared under snow. Interviewed by Rising Kashmir in January 2026, Abdul Rashid of nearby Shutkadi recalled returning by October because the area would be closed for months. Other residents remembered travelling in groups through avalanche-prone stretches. Their accounts gave a human scale to the connection that had opened a year earlier. [6]
Narendra Modi inaugurated the Sonamarg Tunnel on 13 January 2025. Formerly known as Z-Morh, its main passage runs about 6.4 km. The roughly 12-km project includes approach roads and an escape tunnel, with an official cost of more than ₹2,700 crore. It bypasses a vulnerable stretch on the Srinagar–Sonamarg route. [1]
The years before the opening
The opening was the end of a project that crossed administrations. A December 2013 parliamentary reply recorded that Z-Morh’s foundation stone had been laid on 4 October 2012, during the UPA government. It also distinguished the project from the separately approved Zojila Tunnel farther along the highway. [2]
The path from that ceremony to an operating road was interrupted. By January 2020, the transport ministry was signing a replacement concession agreement. Its announcement said the earlier contract was being foreclosed under guidelines for resolving stuck highway projects. Bids had been invited again in June 2019, followed by an award to APCO in December. [3]
The new agreement covered construction, operation and maintenance, with a parallel escape tunnel and a 15-year operating and maintenance period after completion. The remaining construction was then expected to take three and a half years. The 2025 inauguration therefore represented both an engineering achievement and the eventual delivery of a contract that had needed to be rebuilt. [3]
The people missing from the ceremony
The final months also carried a loss that the opening could not repair. Seven people associated with the project were killed in an October 2024 militant attack on the workers’ camp. They included a doctor, an engineer and men who had travelled from Bihar for employment. Both Modi and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah acknowledged the victims at the inauguration. [4]
The Indian Express spoke to their families afterward. Ruchi, the wife of engineer Shashi Abrol, described supporting their children from compensation while awaiting a promised job. Relatives of other victims described different experiences of assistance and uncertainty. Those were the families’ circumstances in January 2025; they form part of the construction history, alongside the machinery, contracts and ceremonial dates. [4]
Sonamarg and the road beyond
The tunnel’s geography sets the limits of its achievement. Reaching Sonamarg through a protected passage does not itself bypass the higher Zojila crossing towards Kargil and Ladakh. NHIDCL’s register dated 31 March 2026 listed Z-Morh as completed while the separate Zojila tunnel and connecting-road project remained ongoing. The two should not be presented as one finished route. [5]
For Sonamarg itself, the change was already appearing in residents’ accounts. Shabir Ahmad told Rising Kashmir that winter visitors and improved access had helped livelihoods. The same reporting also described residents’ concern about lighter snowfall. Those observations cannot isolate how much tourism or income changed because of the tunnel, or establish a long-term snowfall trend. [6]
They do capture a practical change in the calendar. A place remembered for packing up before winter could now receive visitors during it. The road gave residents and businesses more room to plan beyond the season that had once shut them out. [6]