India is now home to the world’s tallest railway bridge, the ‘Chenab Bridge’, which has outperformed and surpassed the famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, by a height of 29 meters or 95 feet. The bridge is 359 meters (1180 Feet) above the Chenab River in Jammu & Kashmir.
In a press release by the Ministry of Railways in March 2023, the railway bridge in northern India will be open to all visitors by the end of December 2023 or January 2024 after decades of construction.
The 4,314 feet bridge (1,315 meters) is part and parcel of a much broader project to make the Kashmir Valley accessible by the Indian Railways Network.
In addition to this project, another massive project named the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail link (USBRL) will be established, which is rightfully considered India’s most extensive transportation tunnel and cable bridge.
According to Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, “The bridge and the greater connectivity projected by New Delhi is another victory for the region’s development.”
Experts say linking Kashmir with the rest of the Indian mainland connectivity by train will specifically boost the region’s industrial and agricultural sectors.
Before this, the only land route connecting Indian-controlled parts of J&K with the rest of the country was the winding 300km (185 miles) Srinagar -Jammu National Highway. This route is closed during winter and is home to numerous accidents.
Anil Kumar Mahendru, the Vice President of the New Kashmir Fruit Association, told CNN that “once we will be connected by train to the rest of India, it will be a big boost to this industry, agriculture as well as fruit.”
Sushant Singh, the senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in India, said that the bridge is also important politically as it integrates Jammu & Kashmir into India. According to him, “the hope historically” was that the rail link, including the Chenab Bridge Project, would make Kashmir “feel more like a part of India.”
However, he told CNN that it remains to be seen whether the people of Kashmir see the expanded connectivity from the bridge and the railway link as a positive development, given that in recent time frame, Kashmir has been undermined by the policies of PM Narendra Modi and the Indian government that has alienated Kashmiris.
In 2019, India revoked a constitutional provision giving the Indian Part of Kashmir the autonomy to formulate its laws. The former state has been bifurcated into two Union Territories (Jammu And Kashmir and Ladakh). PM Narendra Modi believes that the move will promote stability, remove corruption, and boost the economy.
As per Kugelman, following that move, New Delhi said it would leverage a high degree of control over Jammu and Kashmir to bring more excellent development benefits. It will also use the bridge as an eye-catching point to argue its strategy is working.
In a press release, the Indian Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said – “the iconic Chenab Bridge is an example of new chapters and dimension of development materialised by inspiring leadership of the Hon’ble Prime Minister.”
According to a CNN News Affiliate, in a press conference in March 2023, the Modi government has increased the budget of fewer than 100 million USD for the USBRL project by a factor of six to accelerate the bridge ‘s completion after years of delays.
In a press release by the government, India has invested tremendously in its infrastructure modernisation. In February 2023, Modi inaugurated the first section of 1386 kilometre expressway that links the capital to India’s financial hub, Mumbai. The 246-kilometre section of the expressway alone cost 1.4 billion USD.
Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, which aims to decongest India’s Railway Network, is also underway construction.
