Imposed solution

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Ref veeresh #3

[Arguably the most difficult railway project ever attempted in the country, the 290-km rail line linking Jammu with Udhampur, Srinagar and Baramulla will have 783 bridges and 109 km of tunnels. It will put the Kashmir Valley firmly on the rail map and bring the region into the national mainstream......

Arguably the most difficult railway project ever attempted in the country, the 290-km line would have 783 bridges and 109 km of tunnels. The highest bridge, 1.4-km long and stayed over cables over the Chenab, would be 383 metres high while the longest tunnel would be 11.43 km. There will also be a 77-metre-high bridge on piers that would even dwarf the Qutub Minar.]

Compared to railroad lines in other areas, this probably isn`t as much of a challenge as claimed.

It probably compares favorably with the line from Los Mochis to Chihuaha in Mexico that straddles parts of Copper Canyon and hugs the canyon edges in other places.

It probably doesn`t compare with the line through the Rockies in the US where you have to fight the snow in winter.

But it is a start. At least, some Indians are saying they can do something by themselves as opposed to our famous IIT graduates in Aeronautical Engineering who can`t build a paper airplane.

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Arjun Bhai,

``Suicide by a thousand cuts works: Pakistan is out to prove it.``

How true... thankfuly this country has some committed people who try and stem the blood flow cut after cut...

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Solutions for Kashmir will ccome from steps like this, hard facts, numbers, concrete . . . more likely . . . the rest is all hot air.

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````Track to Srinagar: Railways lays it all on toughest 290-km line

Gaurav Raghuvanshi

Arguably the most difficult railway project ever attempted in the country, the 290-km rail line linking Jammu with Udhampur, Srinagar and Baramulla will have 783 bridges and 109 km of tunnels. It will put the Kashmir Valley firmly on the rail map and bring the region into the national mainstream.

THE 62,800-km rail network is said to be one of the greatest unifying force in the country. So it is ironical that the only place still not on the Railway map of India is the Kashmir Valley.

In a bid to get Kashmir into the national mainstream, the Centre has promised to get a train off to the valley in 2007.

The work on the Rs 3,500-crore project is on at a frenetic pace, and the Railways is confident of meeting the deadline. Ask officials working on the ambitious Kashmir rail-link project, and they jokingly offer to book you a Delhi-Srinagar ticket for August 15, 2007.

Arguably the most difficult railway project ever attempted in the country, the 290-km line would have 783 bridges and 109 km of tunnels. The highest bridge, 1.4-km long and stayed over cables over the Chenab, would be 383 metres high while the longest tunnel would be 11.43 km. There will also be a 77-metre-high bridge on piers that would even dwarf the Qutub Minar.

The project was first announced in 1994 by the then Railways Minister, Mr C. K. Jaffer Sharief, in his Budget speech. It was later converted into a national project and work plodded on slowly till the present government decided to focus its attention on connecting Kashmir by rail.

The Railways subsidiary, Ircon International Limited, and the Konkan Railway Corporation have been entrusted with the project, broadly divided into the 54-km Jammu-Udhampur and the 287-km Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla sections.

The Jammu-Udhampur section will cost Rs 510 crore and will be completed by March 2004. Laying railway lines beyond Udhampur up to Baramulla is the tricky part, and the Railways Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, has promised its completion by the Independence Day in 2007.

According to Railway officials, the 142-km Katra-Quazigund section is the most difficult part of the project. As much as 89 km (63 per cent) of the section is in tunnels and 16 km (12 per cent) on bridges.

The 11.43-km tunnel, the longest railway tunnel in the world, would be part of this section and would cut across the Pir Panjal range into the Kashmir Valley. The section will be completed by March 2005.

``There are points where the track will emerge from one tunnel straight on to a bridge, and enter another tunnel. The section is being built on inhospitable terrain that is the biggest railway challenge in history. Half of the railway line is being built on virtually uncharted area where there is no habitation, electricity, water or roads,`` a Northern Railway official said.

The Railways has commissioned advanced remote sensing techniques for the project. Surveys have been completed by the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Organisation and the Geological Survey of India is carrying out the geological interpretation of the satellite images.

The 120-km Quazigund-Baramulla section will run through the Kashmir Valley, which is a natural bowl surrounded by the Pir Panjal range. The Srinagar railway station would come up at Nowgam on the existing national highway.

``Though this section does not involve any tunnels, there will be a lot of bridges across the river Jhelum and its tributaries. Due to severe winters and snowfall, work in the area gets severely hampered,`` the official said.

On the section, there will be 57 major and 340 smaller bridges. Work has been awarded for all the major bridges and construction activity has started on 41. As many as 35 smaller bridges are complete and work is in progress on another 182, he said, adding that the section would become operational by December 2005.

The Jammu-Udhampur section, which is nearing completion, also boasts of several firsts in the Railways history.

A 42-metre embankment is the highest on the Railways, ballast-less tracks are being laid for the first time and reinforced hollow concrete piers have been constructed on all viaducts and bridges keeping the seismological activity of the area in mind.

On the human side, the Konkan Railway Corporation has adopted a novel concept of giving employment to local youth. It has helped 144 unemployed Kashmiri engineering graduates form 16 consulting firms and awarded five-year contracts to these firms.

``We did not want outsiders to go and work in the Valley. Employing local talent would help reduce the sense of alienation as the youngsters would feel proud to be associated with the prestigious project. Helping them form their own companies would help them find work even after the Kashmir project is completed,`` the Konkan Railway Corporation Managing Director, Mr B Rajaram, said.

The 16 firms have been duly registered with nine shareholders, each of whom is a director. These local youth will be given on-the-job training while they work as supervising engineers for Konkan Railway.

Konkan Railway has awarded contracts worth Rs 1.1 crore each to these firms. The contracts will last five years and, during this period, each director will take home about Rs 1.5 lakh per annum after paying for all the expenses of the company.

At the end of the five years, each company will also be left with a small corpus that would act as a cushion till they can find new assignments, Mr Rajaram said.

The Railways claim that they have addressed the security issues and adequate protection would be provided to the different structures and the tracks.

``We are aware that the railway line could become a target for militants. We are taking all precautions and hope that once the Valley gets connected with the rest of the country and regular rail traffic starts flowing in and out, militancy would be dealt with a death blow,`` the Northern Railway official said.

One can only wait, hope and watch.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2003/09/22/stories/2003092200130600.htm


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Pakistani journalist, Ayaz Amir, (who had once served in Pakistan`s army as well) dreads the thought of Jammu & Kashmir falling into the lap of Pakistan. His views seem to be in keeping with those of the British envoy. Here are excerpts from the Ayaz Amir article:

www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm

DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan
03 January 2003 Friday 29 Shawwal 1423

The correct method of waging war
By Ayaz Amir

.....That India is not reconciled to the existence of Pakistan is a tenet whose day is done. Even the leading guardians of the `ideology of Pakistan` blush a little while mentioning it. Similarly, the sun has set on the belief cherished once upon a time by many Pakistanis that Pakistan could settle scores with India on the battlefield and that one Muslim was equal to ten Hindus.

We live in altogether more realistic times. Why then cling to some of the old rhetoric? Other countries have disputes too.....

.....Turning Pakistan into any temple of light is, however, easier said than done. After watching Pakistan`s political games for close to 30 years I am convinced that rationality, reason and democracy cannot triumph in this country as long as the army remains committed to a hard line vis-a-vis India. It is this hard line, buttressed by the spectre of India as the `enemy`, which justifies the sacrifice of national resources at the altar of national security. This is a vicious cycle, one thing feeding upon the other, and unless it is broken Pakistan, in my estimation, will keep going downhill. .....

..... Let us beware of another danger. If by a miracle Kashmir falls into Pakistan`s lap tomorrow, the forces of militarism and fundamentalism in Pakistan will be strengthened, not anything to do with democracy and tolerance. We have enough fundamentalists of our own. Can we afford to take in any more?

In any event, at stake is not the future of Kashmir but that of Pakistan. What direction do we want it to take? Forward or back? What do we want to make of it? A forward-looking country or a tinpot semi-dictatorship sinking under its problems?

Musharraf had the opportunity of changing Pakistan`s course and putting it firmly on the path of what I can only call `modernism`. But he has squandered it. The baggage of Afghanistan the Americans helped him to jettison. So it is no thanks to him that we got rid of the Taliban. In other respects the Pakistani state under him remains what it was: not democracy-friendly and not at peace with its eastern neighbour. In some respects it is even worse with the mullas now a power in the land in a way they never were before.

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