India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has opened one of the country’s most ambitious railway projects, which will connect the Kashmir Valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time.
Dubbed by the government-operated Indian Railways as one of the most challenging tracks in the world, the 272-kilometre (169-mile) line begins in the garrison city of Udhampur in the Jammu region and runs through Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. The line ends in Baramulla, a town near the highly militarised Line of Control dividing the Himalayan region between India and Pakistan.
The Indian government has pegged the total project cost at about $5bn.
The railway line travels through 36 tunnels and over 943 bridges and will facilitate the movement of people and goods, as well as troops, that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and by air.
One of the project’s highlights is a 1,315-metre-long (4,314-foot) steel and concrete bridge above the Chenab River connecting two mountains with an arch 359 metres (1,177 feet) above the water. Indian Railways has compared its height with the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which stands 330 metres (1,082 feet), and said the bridge is built to last 120 years and endure extreme weather, including wind speeds up to 260 km/h (161mph).
Modi visited the Chenab bridge on Friday with tight security, waving an Indian tri-colour flag before boarding a test train that passed through picturesque mountains and tunnels to reach an inauguration ceremony for another high-elevation bridge named Anji.
The railway “ensures all weather connectivity” and will “boost spiritual tourism and create livelihood opportunities”, Modi said.
The prime minister also helped launch a pair of new trains called “Vande Bharat” that will halve the travel time between Srinagar and the town of Katra in the Jammu region to about three hours from the usual six to seven hours by road.
Modi’s visit to Indian-controlled Kashmir on Friday is his first since a military conflict between India and Pakistan brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war last month when the countries fired missiles and drones at each other.
The conflict was triggered after a shooting attack in late April that left 26 men, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied.
India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.
Armed groups in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir armed groups are backed by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.
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