Chenab river hyperlink: Besides engineering challenges, world’s highest rail bridge overcame legal hurdles too | India News

NEW DELHI: The railways didn’t simply face the powerful problem of terrain and geology to assemble the world’s highest cable-supported single-arch bridge on the Chenab river, it additionally fought a protracted legal battle, with a number of PILs filed in courts difficult alignment, value and defective methodology, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the Katra-Banihal part venture for round eight years.Since 2008-09, instances have been being filed in courts. Though work on this Kashmir rail-link part was occurring, it turned extraordinarily sluggish for round two years, Northern Railway officers recalled. The PILs challenged the “alignment, faulty methodology and cost” of the venture, they stated.It was solely 2016 that the legal battle got here to an finish, with the Delhi HC in April accepting the railways’ stand, and the Supreme Court, three months later, additionally disposing of instances. The rulings paved method for full-scale building with work “starting in full swing after July 2016”, as per an Northern Railway doc.Officials, concerned in court docket processes, recalled that with repeated submitting of PILs impacting the work on the part, the Centre deployed the then further solicitor common Maninder Singh within the HC to argue in opposition to the challenges, made more durable when a committee arrange below E Sreedharan on the court docket’s occasion expressed reservations concerning the venture’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 stated.Officials stated legal proceedings got here to an finish with the Railway Board submitting an affidavit on excessive court docket’s instructions.Disposing of the case, the HC stated, “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.“