Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared a bunch of photographs of the new Pamban bridge in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, on micro-blogging site Koo on Wednesday. The bridge is all set to make history upon its inauguration as it is India’s first vertical lift railway sea bridge. It is expected to be ready for use by March 2022.

The new 2-km-long bridge links the island of Rameswaram in the Arabian Sea to the mainland and will replace the structure that has been existing for 104 years. It will have a 63-metre stretch that will lift up vertically, offering a passage to small ships on their way. In the images shared by Ashwini Vaishnaw, workers and deployed machinery can be seen at the site under a clear sky.

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The Ministry of Railways had earlier shared some pictures of the new Pamban bridge. Calling it an engineering marvel, the ministry tweeted, “This dual-track state-of-the-art bridge will be the country’s first vertical lift railway sea bridge and is expected to be completed by March 2022.”

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the bridge in 2019, the construction started on November 9, the same year. 

Railways is hoping that the new bridge will aid the national transporter in running trains at higher speeds, carry heavier weight and increase the volume of traffic. The bridge is being built at an estimated cost of Rs 250 crore.

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With 101 piers, it is going to be 3-metre higher than the existing one. Thus providing more navigational air clearance for vessels to pass.

The one that exists already was India’s first sea bridge that became operational in 1914. The construction of that Pamban Bridge was finished in three years and it was essentially India’s longest sea bridge until the opening of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in 2010.