Leighton India has received a $500m contract to build a tunnel in India’s Jammu region.

The 9km, two-lane Chennai-Nashri tunnel is expected to be one of the longest road tunnels in Asia.

It is expected to bypass a winding section of the NH1A highway, providing an all-weather route to save time for motorists.

Leighton India is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor to ITNL, which owns the concession with the National Highway Authority of India to construct and operate the project.

The construction work is scheduled to take around four and a half years to complete.