The world’s tallest railway arch bridge over the Chenab river in Jammu, providing rail connectivity to Kashmir, will be capable of handling high intensity blasts and resisting the worst possible natural disaster.
“This is for the first time globally that a bridge is designed to handle high level trinitrotoluene (TNT) blast load. We consulted the Defence Research and Development Organisation to ensure safety of the bridge architecture,” said Rajendra Kumar, Project Director at Konkan Railway Corporation Limited which is executing the ₹1,200-crore Chenab rail bridge project.
The 1.3 km long bridge over the Chenab at a height of 359 metres will be 35m taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris and five times the height of the Qutab Minar in Delhi.
The bridge will be a crucial link in the 111-km stretch between Katra (Jammu) and Banihal (Kashmir) which is part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla section of the railway project aimed at linking Kashmir through rail with the rest of the country.
The project site located barely 60 km from the Pakistan border — has faced several delays since its inception.
The construction work of the Chenab Bridge – declared as a national project — was awarded in August 2004 with a completion target of April 2007. However, the project has since missed several deadlines as the Railways was in the process of addressing bridge alignment and safety issues.
( This correspondent visited the project site at the invitation of Ministry of Railways )
