2023-05-03 12:20:26
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — India is now home to the highest railway bridge in the world.
The Chenab Bridge is located over the Chenab River in the controversial region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, at an altitude of 359 meters, 29 meters higher than the Eiffel Tower.
After decades of construction, the bridge in northern India will be available to visitors by the end of December or January 2024, according to a press release from the Ministry of Railways in March.
The 1,315-metre long bridge is part of a wider project to make the Kashmir Valley accessible across the Indian railway network.
In addition to the Chenab Bridge, the project includes the country’s longest transportation tunnel and India’s first wire-rail bridge.
For Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came to power in 2014 with promises of future greatness, such infrastructure investments as the Chenab Bridge and wider railway project can be seen as a powerful tool for social integration and political influence, connecting different regions to major cities.
“New Delhi will see the bridge, the greater connection that it is supposed to create, as another great victory for the development of the region,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center.
Experts say that linking Kashmir with the rest of India via railways will particularly boost the industrial and agricultural sectors in the region, by providing seasonal rail connectivity between the valley and the rest of India.
Previously, the only land road linking parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir with the rest of the country was the Srinagar-Jammu National Road, which is 300 km long and closed during winters, as well as frequent vehicular accidents.
“We are facing a lot of problems when crossing the road,” Anil Kumar Mehendru, vice president of the New Kashmir Fruit Association, told CNN.
“Once we are connected to the rest of India by train, it will be a huge boost for both the fruit industry and agriculture,” he said.
For his part, Sushant Singh, a researcher at the Center for Policy Research in India, stated that the bridge also has political implications, as it is seen as “a way to integrate Kashmir with India.”
According to Singh, the “historic hope” is that railway connectivity, including the Chenab Bridge, will make Kashmir “feel more part of India”.
However, Singh told CNN that it is “still to be seen” if the bridge and railway connectivity is seen as positive by Kashmiris, especially since “Kashmir has in recent years been deteriorating as a result of the policies taken by Prime Minister Modi and his government, which have really to their distaste.”
And in 2019, India scrapped a constitutional provision that gave the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir autonomy to make its own laws.
The region’s southern and eastern regions, formerly known as the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, became two independent union territories, a move Modi claimed would boost stability, curb corruption and boost the economy.
“New Delhi’s message, in the followingmath of this move, was that it will further exploit its control over Jammu and Kashmir to bring more developmental benefits, and use the bridge as a salient and eye-catching element to prove the effectiveness of its strategy,” Kugelman said.
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