World's highest railway bridge over Chenab in J&K: All you need to know

NEW DELHI: The world's highest railway bridge over river Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir will be ready by next year, and will connect the valley with the rest of India by train for the first time by 2022, officials said on Sunday.
According to the plans, Kashmir will be connected with train by December 2022.
Here is all you need to know:
About the bridge
* The bridge, which has a central span of 467 metres, is being built at a height of 359 metres from the bed level.The height of Qutab Minar in Delhi is 72 metres and that of the Eiffel Tower in Paris is 324 metres.
* This is the tallest railway bridge in the world and the maximum designed wind speed for the bridge is 266 kmph, a senior government official said.
* The construction work of the bridge was accelerated in the last one year under the direct supervision of the top echelons of the central government, the official said
Connecting Valley with the rest of India
* The arch-shaped bridge will connect Baramulla and Srinagar to Jammu via Udhampur-Katra-Qazigund covering the entire route in about seven hours.
* The Udhmapur-Katra (25 Km) section, Banihal-Quazigund (18 Km) section and Quazigund-Baramulla (118Km) section have already been commissioned.
* The last remaining section, the 111 km Katra-Banihal section is currently under execution. It is targeted for completion in December 2022. The 126 km out of 174 km of tunnels on this section has already been completed.
* Unique features
* The 1,315-m-long engineering design will withstand blast and seismic activities, while the signalling arrangements would ensure the train does not encounter high wind velocity at that height.
* Trains can cruise at 100 kmph on the structure.
* The bridge will rise 359 metres over the Chenab, 65 km from Katra, on the 73-km Katra-Dharam section of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link Project.
* The bridge can bear wind speeds of up to 260 km per hour and a minus-20-degree centigrade temperature.
* Over 5,462 tonnes of steel will be placed high over the river-bed and will be an engineering marvel.
* The railways has designed the signalling system at the bridge in such a manner that it shows the stop light automatically when wind speed is more than 90 kmph.
* Considering the inaccessible terrain of the Himalayan mountains, the bridge will get a special coat of paint with a life span of around 35 years to protect it from the tough weather.
* In securing the bridge, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) played its part. Under DRDO's advice, the bridge has been so designed that even if one of the 17 piers supporting it is blown up, the bridge will not collapse. The deck of the bridge can withstand a heavy TNT blast.
Completion of the project
* There has been a greater push in the last one year for implementation of various projects under the Rs 80,068 crore Prime Minister's Development Package (PMDP) announced on November 7, 2015, officials said.
* The programme touches practically every sector and provides for massive investments in basic infrastructure, another official said.
* After the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir was left with 54 projects under the PMDP with an outlay of Rs 58,627 crore. A total of nine projects with an outlay of Rs 21,441 crore were transferred to the UT of Ladakh.
Missed deadlines
* The 1.315-km-long bridge awarded in 2004 has missed many deadlines so far. The first being February 2007 that was missed because of several issues including delay in designs sinalisation and court cases.
* Then from 2016 to 2018, several deadlines were missed due to many issues, including the 2014 floods in J&K.
* According to the ministry of railways, the deadline for the completion of the railway project has been moved ahead from June 2022 to December 2021.