When Himalayan passes open and close, and who actually decides

Two dates, and two different offices deciding them

On 25 April 2022, Lahaul and Spiti's Deputy Commissioner Neeraj Kumar issued a notification allowing light vehicles to use the Manali-Leh road beyond Darcha toward Baralacha La, daytime only, until 1 pm. BRO had already cleared that stretch. Kumar's own order was the separate decision that let civilian traffic actually move on it.

The same split runs on Rohtang Pass. On 5 May 2022, Kullu's Deputy Commissioner Ashutosh Garg issued the order letting tourist vehicles go to the 13,058-foot pass, after BRO had finished clearing it and his office had inspected the road. The clearing and the opening were reported as two separate events, days apart, by two different people.

On the full Manali-Leh axis, 2025 reporting from Ladakh describes the same structure at a larger scale. BRO's own clearance opens the road first for defence and essential-service traffic, and civilian and tourist movement needs a separate decision, granted by the District Disaster Management Authorities. So when you read that a pass is open, the honest question is open for whom, and the gap between BRO's finish line and yours has run from a few days to roughly two weeks in the examples here.

What six weeks of digging actually looks like

In 2026, BRO's clearance of the Manali-Leh highway began on 27 March and finished on 13 May, 42 days to restore 427 km, with crews having to retreat and restart work at least six times because of fresh snowfall and bad weather. In 2025, the same operation ran 46 days, from 21 March to 10 May, across 26 avalanche-prone sites on the Manali-Sarchu stretch alone, with recorded snow walls up to 50 feet. That year's clearance also covered a newly realigned stretch of Baralacha La for the first time since its construction finished in November 2024.

Project Deepak works the Himachal side down from Manali. Project Himank works up from the Ladakh side. The two meet somewhere past Baralacha La. This site's own riding-seasons guide covers that agency split and the full year-by-year table, so it isn't repeated here. What that headline hides is six weeks of crews and machines working in freezing temperatures against repeated setbacks. It is not a single dozer pass.

Project Himank's own director of works, Colonel Deepak Palande, put the project's purpose plainly to reporters in August 2025: every road matters because of what it does for the movement of defence logistics, personnel and equipment. That's worth remembering before you get frustrated at a barricade. BRO's clearance is run for that purpose first, which is exactly why the civilian opening is a separate decision, made later, by someone else.

Rohtang's opening date has nothing to do with the Atal Tunnel's

Rohtang Pass, as a day-trip tourist destination above Manali, runs on its own calendar, separate from the Atal Tunnel route underneath it. A National Green Tribunal order from 2015 capped tourist traffic to the pass at 1,000 vehicles a day on a first-come, first-served basis. The NGT refused to raise that limit in 2023 even after petitioners pointed to the Atal Tunnel's opening and better parking. By 2024, on-the-ground reporting gave a different figure: 1,200 permits a day, split 800 petrol and 400 diesel, at Rs 550 each. Neither report explains the gap between 1,000 and 1,200, and no order reconciling them turned up in this research, so treat both numbers as what was reported in their year, not as today's figure. Check the live cap on the permit portal the week you plan to ride.

The same two-step process applies here too. BRO's clearance and the Deputy Commissioner's order are still separate events, as Ashutosh Garg's 5 May 2022 order showed.

The tunnel changed the route, not the mountain

The Atal Tunnel opened on 3 October 2020. It bypasses Rohtang Pass, cuts roughly 46 km and four to five hours off the route into Lahaul, and means Lahaul no longer depends on Rohtang's own clearance for a road link to Manali.

That does not make the tunnel immune to winter. On 3 February 2026, an avalanche hit near the Snow Gallery at the tunnel's north portal and shut NH-3 again, with no injuries reported but traffic stopped on the key link between Lahaul-Spiti and the rest of Himachal. The tunnel gives Lahaul a far longer open season than Rohtang Pass ever offered on its own. It is not a guarantee against every winter closure on the approach roads leading to it.

What's actually planned, and why it changes nothing this season

BRO has been open about tunnels planned under Baralacha La and Taglang La, part of the same all-weather push that built the Atal Tunnel and is building one under Shinku La for the Zanskar road. As of August 2025, BRO reported the alignments for the Baralacha La and Taglang La tunnels as almost finalised, with detailed project reports still to come.

BRO's own chief, Lieutenant General Rajeev Chaudhary, told reporters in September 2023 that the organisation built only two tunnels in its first 60 years, four more in the three years before that interview, with ten more expected within one to two years and eight further ones still in planning. A plan with an almost-finalised alignment is real. On that timeline, it is also years from a ribbon-cutting. Plan this year's ride around this year's road conditions, not a tunnel that doesn't exist yet.

For the actual opening dates this season, this site's riding-seasons and Ladakh shoulder-season guides carry the year-by-year tables, and they're worth checking again close to your ride, since even BRO finishing its own clearance is only half the answer.