Qazigund: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Jammu and Kashmir on April 19 for the inauguration of the much-awaited Vande Bharat Express from Katra to Srinagar has been postponed, officials said on Monday.
Officials, as per the news agency KNO said that the PM’s visit to inaugurate the Vande Bharat Express on a stretch of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL), a 272-km-long mega railway project, has been postponed.
Preparations were already underway for the high-profile visit, with mock drills and trial runs being conducted on the USBRL section.
Speaking to KNO, Chief Area Manager (CAM) Kashmir, Saqib Yousuf Yatoo (IRTS), confirmed the postponement of the PM’s visit, stating that no fresh date has been announced yet.
Special Vande Bharat’s trial conducted on Katra-Sangaldan section
Ahead of its scheduled inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 19 (now postponed), a special Vande Bharat train’s trial run was successfully conducted on Tuesday on the Katra-Sangaldan section of the 272-km Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Line (USBRL) which connects Kashmir with the rest of the country.
The trial run is part of the final arrangements for the inauguration of the world’s highest railway bridge on the Chenab River, which falls in the Katra-Sangaldan section of the prestigious railway project, officials said.
Modi was scheduled to flag off the Vande Bharat train from Jammu to Srinagar via Katra. The trial run of the special Vande Bharat train took place on the Katra-Sangaldan section on Tuesday, the officials said.
Prime Minister Modi was also expected to travel in the train on this bridge as part of the inauguration.
He will later flag off the first train to Kashmir from Katra to begin the operation of train services between Katra and Baramulla and connect Kashmir with the rest of the country, they said.
A multi-tier security setup has been put in place along the track and at vital locations in the Katra-Sangaldan section, as well as along the entire track to Kashmir, they said.
“We have made full preparations and now this USBRL section is ready for the inauguration and flag-off ceremony. This entire area is very important from the religious, tourism and connectivity points of view of Kashmir,” a senior railway official said.
The official further said two Vande Bharat Express trains — one from Srinagar to Katra and another from Katra to Srinagar — will run on the inauguration day.
The Railways has conducted eight trials over the past three months on various segments of the Katra-Kashmir track, including major milestones such as India’s first cable-stayed rail bridge, the Anji Khad Bridge and the iconic arch bridge over the Chenab at Kauri — the world’s highest railway bridge.
The Railway officials said stretching 1,315 metres across the Chenab River near the Salal Dam, the bridge features a main arch span of 467 metres and can withstand wind speeds of up to 266 kmph.
The bridge surpasses the Eiffel Tower in height and is nearly five times taller than the Qutub Minar from the riverbed to the rail level.
The construction of this engineering marvel involved over 28,000 metric tonnes of steel. It introduced a first-of-its-kind cable crane system which was used to ferry materials across a 915-metre-wide gorge with two massive cable cars and pylons towering over 100 metres high, they said.
The bridge is part of the USBRL project and connects “not just terrain but aspirations — linking the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India with an all-weather, reliable rail route”. The ministry claimed that it is the “world’s highest railway bridge” at 359 metres above the riverbed.
Out of the total 272-km USBRL project, 209 km was commissioned in phases, with the first phase of the 118-km Qazigund-Baramulla section commissioned in October 2009, followed by 18 km Banihal-Qazigund in June 2013, 25 km Udhampur-Katra in July 2014 and the 48.1-km-long Banihal-Sangaldan stretch in February last year.
The work on the 46-km Sangaldan-Reasi section was also completed in June last year, leaving a 17-km stretch between Reasi and Katra, which was finally completed in December 2024.
