Chenab river link: Besides engineering challenges, world's highest rail bridge overcame legal hurdles too

NEW DELHI: The railways did not just face the tough challenge of terrain and geology to construct the world's highest cable-supported single-arch bridge on the Chenab river, it also fought a long legal battle, with a host of PILs filed in courts challenging alignment, cost and faulty methodology, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the Katra-Banihal section project for around eight years.Since 2008-09, cases were being filed in courts. Though work on this Kashmir rail-link section was going on, it became extremely sluggish for around two years, Northern Railway officials recalled. The PILs challenged the "alignment, faulty methodology and cost" of the project, they said.It was only 2016 that the legal battle came to an end, with the Delhi HC in April accepting the railways' stand, and the Supreme Court, three months later, also disposing of cases.

The rulings paved way for full-scale construction with work "starting in full swing after July 2016", as per an Northern Railway document.Officials, involved in court processes, recalled that with repeated filing of PILs impacting the work on the section, the Centre deployed the then additional solicitor general Maninder Singh in the HC to argue against the challenges, made tougher when a committee set up under E Sreedharan at the court's instance expressed reservations about the project's alignment proposed by the railway.

"The project would have been completed early had there not been these court cases," a former Northern Railway official said.Officials said legal proceedings came to an end with the Railway Board submitting an affidavit on high court's directions.Disposing of the case, the HC said, "The affidavit states that the Railway Board, after due consideration/ examination of the report of the Sreedharan committee, is fully satisfied with the safety, security and all other necessary/vital aspects of the existing alignment of the broad gauge railway line between Katra and Banihal as also regarding the bridge over the river Chenab and that the existing alignment as well as the bridge over the river Chenab are clear from the safety and security angles.

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