Kashmir Railway Project: Development of a Construction Project

<< Previous

Excerpts Contd...

The construction process of the entire project required about 41.3 million cubic meters of earthwork, which was a huge task for the engineers and posed many challenges in terms of both technical and logistical aspects. The engineers had to counter these challenges in various ways: 1. They made the embankments as high as possible (42 m) 2. Normally, a stable slope of 2(H):1(V) was used for the embankment. Whenever that slope was not available, they used Reinforced Soil to reduce the embankment slopes. 3. Whenever good quality soil was not available, they resorted to the construction of a viaduct and called it preferred fill materials in railway parlance...

In the mountain area, bridge building was a difficult task and posed several challenges. In addition to the complexity of design, building these bridges called for meticulous planning and a large number of special techniques. The topography of the area meant that long girders and high piers had to be used to build sustainable bridges...

Another important aspect of the entire construction was building the tunnels. As the railroad system was to be built across the Siwalik ranges of the Himalaya where the geological and the geo-technical constitutions were ever-changing, the task of tunneling was extremely challenging and arduous...

The entire project became mired in controversy as its total cost crossed Rs. 110 billion at the halfway stage. This was almost twice the preliminary estimate of Rs. 60 billion. According to the experts, this happened because the project was started without a proper and thorough geological survey being done. This resulted in different important tunnels collapsing even as they were being built or unnecessary water logging occurring in different sections. This fact also contributed to the delays that occurred during the project implementation. Though a deadline of August 15, 2007, was set by the Vajpayee Government for project completion, Leg 1 and Leg 2 had still not been completed by the end of 2010...

Despite these controversies, some experts argued that one must not forget that this railway track was considered to be the most challenging task undertaken by the Government of India and one of the most difficult tracks in Asia. There had been some problems and setbacks, but those setbacks could not take away credit from the ministry and the engineers who actually tried to complete the project against all odds, they said...

Exhibit I: Political Route Map of the Kashmir Railways
Exhibit II: A Snapshot of a Passenger Train in Kashmir Railways
Exhibit III: A Glimpse of the Chenab Bridge

---

Custom Search

---

Operations Management Textbooks Collection	Operations Management Workbooks Collection	Case Studies in Operations Management - Vol. I Case Study Volumes Collection