The Challenge

The Task was formidable. As Karlis Goppers pointed out in his Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) report in July 1997: “With a total number of 2000 bridges and 92 tunnels to be built through this mountainous terrain containing many rivers, the project is the biggest – and perhaps most difficult – railway undertaking during this century, at least in this part of the world”. The report  went on to say that the project, despite the various problems, had been carried out efficiently and in a very short time”.

The largest railway project in this part of the world in the last five decades threw up a whole range of difficulties – technical financial emotional and psychological. The rocky Sahyadris had to be bored through 1500 rivers had to be forded, a railway line had to be built out of nowhere. And every once in a while, a poisonous snake, or a tiger, decided to take a close look at goings-on! In the face of collapsing embankments and unrelenting mountains, the engineers had to be tough. But they also had to be deeply sensitive to the feelings of those who had given up their land.

For those who considered the building of the Konkan Railway their mission, there were three main areas of concern. The first of these was the technical challenge; the second was a long-drawn out battle in court with political and environmental pressure groups in Goa, and the third, but the most daunting, was the problem of raising inexpensive finance. Financial problems haunted the project right from the start, most often for reasons beyond KRCL’s control. Unexpected protests and soft soil tunnels also led to delays and further cost escalations.

Were the project’s most serious problem, and foreign experts who were brought in could do nothing to solve it. In fact, similar problems were recently experienced in tunnel construction on the west coast of Sweden, and the SIDA report asked: “May be Sweden should send a study team to Konkan to learn from their experience?”!

Mr. B. Rajaram, then Director (Projects), explained to the Deccan Herald, in an article the newspaper titled ‘Technical Triumph’: “The complexity of the terrain in Goa made tunnel boring a formidable exercise.” What made soft soil unnelling particularly difficult was that along the west coast, the top three to eight metres of soil had hardened due to laterisation, and required blasting, while the layers beneath consisted of lithomargic soft soil, sometimes mixed with large boulders. This lithomargic soil, in Mr. Sreedharan’s words, became like “toothpaste”. And as Mr. R. Richardson Asir, who was Chief Engineer, Udupi and Karwar, pointed out, there were no textbook solutions.

Work had to be done round the clock. As 57-year-old Mr. V.S. Sutar, Deputy Chief Engineer, who stayed away from his family for two years while working at Pernem and other difficult tunnels, said: “If you stopped to take a nap, the tunnel would finish you”.

Of the total of 83 km. of tunnels, 74 km. were successfully built in record time. Indeed, where the record for tunnelling work had been 187 metres in a month, the engineers at Natuwadi tunnel near Khed had achieved a spectacular 204 metres. It was the 3,500 metres of weak soil, mainly in Goa and Karnataka, which had posed the problem.

Other problems included the sinking of four embanments, at Narve, Cortalim, Rivora and Dhargal in Goa. The 900-metre long embankment at Cortalim was a major challenge. As Mr. S.D. Limaye, Chief Engineer (Coordination) explained: “After several failures, a decision was taken in June 1996 to cover the 450-metre stretch at Cortalim by a viaduct. A novel design with a superstructure of pre-cast RCC slabs was evolved, and – lo and behold! – Mr. S.K. Arora, Deputy Chief Engineer, Panaji, completed the task in just five months. This was a record of sorts!”

Indeed, as Mr.S.B. Bonde, Honorary Secretary of The Institution of Enginerrs (India) said in a letter to KRCL, “Konkan Railway construction is a unique work of this country. All the latest technologies are used and some are indigenously developed. You, and your team of engineers, have admirably completed this challenging work. We are proud of you”. Considering the challenges involved, he certainly had reason to feel that way.