IS IT TIME TO THINK OF A RAM SETU EXPRESS?

AS far as railway bridges go, you could call it short-spanning only 2.2 km. Yet, if you look hard at what it could lead to, it's symbolic of a magnificent possibility of historical, cultural, economic and geopolitical significance in the 21st century.

- MADHAVAN NARAYANAN

We don't have to look back far for inspiration. As India was marking its Constitution Day this week, rail safety commissioner A M Chowdhary quietly authorised the opening of a reconstructed Pamban bridge between Mandapam and Pamban stations in Tamil Nadu. However, he mentioned glaring lapses in the construction and advised safeguards.

Built at a cost of about ₹550 crore, India's first vertical lift bridge, an engineering marvel, will connect Rameshwaram with mainland India and enable a speed of 80 km per hour across the bridge. The project is being executed by the Rail Vikas Nigam and replaces an old bridge built by the British in 1914. The new bridge has a 72.5-metre vertical, single-lift span designed to move up and down to allow ships to pass under.

For me, this brought back memories of a midnight ceremony at St Petersburg, Russia on the margins of a G20 summit, when I saw a road bridge across a river rise up and split from the middle to allow ships to pass through.

Engineering has come a long way, and the Pamban bridge represents a potential that India can exploit in the not-too-distant future to probably build a high-speed rail link between India and Sri Lanka. Why not, is what I asked myself, though I would expect engineers, environmental activists, economists and diplomats to debate and quibble on what it could imply.