Railway officials have claimed that the arch bridge on the river Chenab connecting Katra and Banihal will be higher than Eiffel Tower.
The decision to stick to the old alignment of connecting Katra and Banihal via the bridge was taken unanimously by Railway Board, which also examined a report by a committee headed by Metro Man E Sreedharan which had suggested an alternate alignment, said Sinha, who laid foundation stone for two pillars of the bridge.
"This work got delayed unnecessarily due to PIL. But the Railway Board has unanimously decided to speed up the work... This rail line will be dedicated to the country by 2020. Rather, we will try to commission it before that. This will help people here commute to other parts of the country and vice versa," Sinha told reporters here.
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"...We will work on the old alignment. This alignment was fixed after consulting IIT-Delhi, IISc Bangalore and many international organizations. The matter is before court, I wont comment on it. But we will insist to the court that we have taken the decision unanimously and it is in the interest of the bridge...," Sinha said.
Member (Engineering), Railway Board, V K Gupta said, "Height of the bridge will be 359 metre from river bed. When height of such bridge is measured, the entire structure is taken into account, so, the total height will be 475 meters, which is more than that of Eiffel tower".
Meanwhile, local residents expressed hope that the project will be completed soon. "We will get employment due to the project. Our lands were acquired for it. If the project is stalled, we will be in trouble as our lands are already gone," said Raman Kumar, Sarpanch of Kanthan village in the district.
Total cost of the entire project is Rs 19,564 crore and the government has spent Rs 10,975 crore on it as on May 2015.