India has a great heritage in architecture and design. And, since independence, the country has made major advances in engineering too. Be it a tunnel in the treacherous mountains or the amazing metros that connect lakhs of commuters every day, our talented countrymen have designed and executed some amazing projects that deserve to be recognized and applauded.
The Global Construction 2030 report predicts that India will become the third-largest construction market, behind the USA and China, by 2021. The rapidly increasing mega projects in India will lead to a massive boost in the nation’s infrastructure.
India’s Pride and major infrastructure projects include the Central Vista redevelopment, Bullet train, Metro Rail, Chenab Bridge, Qazigund Tunnel, and Eastern Freeway along with the Golden Quadrilateral highway network, port connectivity, and national waterways. These amazing infrastructure projects of India ranked well in the world and makes us proud, other great infrastructure also includes Tehri Dam, Pamban Bridge, Gurgaon Toll Plaza, high rise buildings, and big IT parks.
Here are the top amazing infrastructural projects in India that make us super proud.
=> The Central Vista redevelopment project:
The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs proposed a Central Vista redevelopment project in 2019.
A new Master Plan is to be drawn up for the entire Central Vista area that represents the values and aspirations of a New India – Good Governance, Efficiency, Transparency, Accountability, and Equity and is rooted in the Indian Culture and social milieu. These new iconic structures shall be a legacy for 150 to 200 years at the very least.
The redevelopment project of Central Vista - the nation’s power corridor - envisages a triangular Parliament building next to the existing one, common Central Secretariat and revamping of the 3-km-long Rajpath - from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate. A new Parliament House will come upon a 9.5-acre land near the existing building. According to sources, the prime minister’s residence and office are likely to be shifted near the South Block and vice-president’s new house will be in the vicinity of the North Block. The government releases Rs 20,000-crore for the redevelopment project.
The project envisages
> Constructing a triangular Parliament building next to the existing one.
> Constructing Common Central Secretariat.
> Revamping of the 3-km-long Rajpath - from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate.
- North and South Block to be repurposed as museums.
Central Vista
Currently, the Central Vista of New Delhi houses Rashtrapati Bhawan, Parliament House, North and South Block, India Gate, National Archives among others.
> The task of constructing a new city was given to Edwin Lutyens, known for his strong adherence to European Classicism and Herbert Baker, a prominent architect in South Africa.
- Herbert Baker is also the architect of the Union buildings at Pretoria, South Africa.
> Parliament House building was designed by both Lutyens and Baker.
> Rashtrapati Bhavan was designed by Edwin Lutyens.
> The Secretariat which includes both north and south block was designed by Herbert Baker.
=> GIFT City, Gujrat:
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) is an under-construction central business district between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar that will be a major financial hub. The Rs. 600,000 crore project will host corporate and regional offices of companies, a trade center, housing colonies, and a center for the domestic financial sector. It is expected to create over 10 lakh new jobs in 10 years. Organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and agencies of the United Nations are expected to open offices here. GIFT city is designed to be eco-friendly - it will use an energy-efficient district cooling system instead of air-conditioning.
=> Delhi-Mumbai Trade Corridor (US $90bn):
The Delhi-Mumbai Trade Corridor is a 1,483 km railway track that worked into nine “Mega Industrial Zones”. The main aim of the billion-dollar scheme is to create a quick, reliable trade route linking the north of India to the south.
Currently, it takes 14 days to transfer cargo along this route according to Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant. With the DMIC’s completion, it will take just 14 hours.
=> Mumbai - Ahmedabad Bullet Train:
The ambitious high-speed rail project is being developed at a cost of Rs 1.08 lakh crore. It is another upcoming mega project in India in which high-speed rail will cover the distance of approx 509 km between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in just 3 hours.
> 508km high-speed track, including 7 km undersea tunnel
> train speed of 320km/h, will reduce travel time between business-critical cities of Mumbai and Ahmedabad from 7 hrs to 2 hrs
> planned to be operational by 2022
=> Highest Bridge of the World on River Chenab:
The Chenab Bridge is a railway steel and concrete arch bridge under construction between Bakkal and Kauri in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir in India. When finished, the bridge will span the Chenab River at a height of 359 m (1,178 ft) above the river, making it the world's highest rail bridge. In November 2017 the base supports were declared completed allowing for the start of the construction of the main arch. The bridge is scheduled to open in December 2021 though that seems highly optimistic.
Key technical data of the bridge include:
> Deck height (height above river): 359 m (1,178 ft)
> Bridge length: 1,315 m (4,314 ft), including the 650 m (2,130 ft) long viaduct on the northern side
> Arch span: 467 m (1,532 ft)
> Arch length: 480 m (1,570 ft)
This makes the Chenab Bridge:
> The world's highest railway bridge
> The bridge with the widest span in the Indian broad gauge railway network
=> Sagarmala Project:
The vision of the Sagarmala Programme is to reduce logistics costs for EXIM and domestic trade with minimal infrastructure investment. This includes:
> Reducing cost of transporting domestic cargo through optimizing the modal mix
> Lowering logistics cost of bulk commodities by locating future industrial capacities near the coast
> Improving export competitiveness by developing port proximate discrete manufacturing clusters
> Optimizing time/cost of EXIM container movement
As part of the Sagarmala Programme, more than 610 projects (Cost: Rs. 7.78 Lacs Cr.) have been identified for implementation, during 2015-2035, across the areas of port modernization & new port development, port connectivity enhancement, port-linked industrialization, and coastal community development. As of June-2020, a total of 550 projects (costing around Rs. 5 Lac Crore) were under various stages of implementation, development, and completion.
=> Chardham-Highway Project:
Char Dham Expressway National Highway (चार धाम महामार्ग), is a proposed two-lane express National Highway with a minimum width of 10 meters in the state of Uttarakhand. The proposed highway will complement the under development Char Dham Railway by connecting the four holy places in Uttarakhand states includes Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri. The project includes 900 km of national highways that will connect the whole of Uttarakhand state.
The total cost of INR Rs.12000 crores and the foundation stone of the project was laid by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on 27 December 2016 at Parade Ground in Dehradun. The highway will be called Char Dham Mahamarg (Char Dham Highway) and the highway construction project will be called Char Dham Mahamarg Vikas Pariyojana (Char Dham Highway Development Project) and is made to improve the connectivity to the Chota Char Dham centered in the Himalayas.
=> Bharatmala Project:
The development of any nation depends on the transportation networks and the ways in which they are being maintained. The same holds true for the development of a huge and populous nation like India. For connecting the areas and maintaining the smooth flow of traffic, the construction of new and developed roads is a must. The same will be achieved with the implementation of the Bharatmala project. Under the scheme, a host of new roads will be laid down in the nation.
Bharatmala Pariyojana is a new umbrella program for the highways sector that focuses on optimizing the efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps through effective interventions like the development of Economic Corridors, Inter Corridors and Feeder Routes, National Corridor Efficiency Improvement, Border and International connectivity roads, Coastal and Port connectivity roads and Green-field expressways.
The announcement of the mammoth scheme was done by Shri Nitin Gadkari, in the presence of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. The implementation of a pan-nation scheme to improve the road network was the idea of the PM. All key aspects of the scheme will be managed by the Road Transport and Highways Ministry of the country.
=> Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, Shivaji Memorial:
The Shiv Smarak or Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial is a monument under construction dedicated to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the 17th-century Indian warrior king and founder of the Maratha Empire. The statue will be located in the Arabian Sea, near the coast of Mumbai facing Mumbai’s Girgaum Chowpatty beach, 1.5 km away on a manmade island of rocks. The statue will be 126 meters in height, placed on top of an 84 m pedestal, making the total height of the monument 212 m.
The project area is planned to be spread over 130,000 square meters. It is expected to be completed in 2021. The total cost of the project is estimated to be approx 25000 cr.
The project will include visitor center buildings, a memorial garden, a library, food court, and convention center with room for approximately 10,000 people, a museum, exhibition gallery, amphitheater, helipad, and hospital. The memorial will showcase replicas of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s forts.
=> Inland Waterways:
Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), anticipating an increase in cargo traffic, plans to purchase 8-10 inland cargo vessels to operate on two key waterways – the Ganga and the Brahmaputra.
Following the Government’s push to this mode of transportation, it expects there will be a demand for 150-200 barges/vessels on the Ganga (National Waterways 1) in the next 3-4 years.
Cargo traffic on the two waterways, called the National Waterway 1 and 2, is expected to double to around 65 million tonnes as inland water transport is efficient, economical and environment friendly mode for transportation, according to an IWAI official.
The authority plans to procure vessels suited to the existing fairway developed and maintained by IWAI at National Waterways 1 and 2 initially.
This is to demonstrate its competitiveness vis-à-vis rail and road and to create awareness among shippers, vessel operators, and investors on the potential of the IWT system.
=> Gujarat-Gorakhpur Gas Pipeline:
State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) plans to lay the nation's longest LPG pipeline from the Gujarat coast to Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh to cater to the growing demand for cooking gas in the country.
IOC plans to import LPG at Kandla in Gujarat and move it through the 1,987-kilometer pipeline to Gorakhpur via Ahmedabad (in Gujarat), Ujjain, Bhopal (in Madhya Pradesh), Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, and Lucknow (in Uttar Pradesh).
The pipeline will carry 3.75 million tons per annum of LPG, IOC said in an application to the sector regulator PNGRB seeking approval for the pipeline project.
LPG will be fed into the pipeline at Kandla port as well as IOC's Koyali refinery in Gujarat. This will be the biggest LPG pipeline in the country.
GAIL currently operates a 1,415-km line from Jamnagar in Gujarat to Loni near here. The line carries 2.5 million tons of LPG annually.
GAIL also has a 623-km Vizag-Secunderabad pipeline. IOC also has a 274-km pipeline from Panipat in Haryana to Jalandhar.
=> India’s First Solar Park at Charanka Village in Gujarat:
This group of solar parks constructed in Gujarat makes the state Asia’s largest solar park hub. Spread across 5,000 acres, with a capacity of 500 MW, the park can generate both solar and wind energy. Operational since 2013, it hosts 19 different projects by different developers, including Alex Astral, US-based Sun Edison, Lanco Solar, Roha Dyechem, and GMR.
=> World-Class, Eco-Friendly Airports:
Cochin airport created news when it became India’s first airport to run on solar power in August 2015. The airport has photovoltaic (PV) panels laid across 45 acres near the cargo complex. The airport can avail 50,000 to 60,000 units of electricity per day through these panels which are sufficient for all its functions. This has technically made the airport “absolutely power neutral.” The implementation of this 12MWp solar power project cost Rs. 62 crore and took six months to complete.
=> Neemuch Solar Power Plant, Madhya Pradesh:
Located at Diken in Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh (MP), it is Asia’s largest solar power plant. This 151 (DC)-megawatt solar photovoltaic power project by Welspun Energy, India’s largest private solar project developers, is set up on an 800-acre site. The plant will address the power needs of 6.24 lakh homes in MP on completion.
=> World One Tower:
WorldOne is a tall residential skyscraper under construction in Mumbai. Designed by world-famous fashion icon Giorgio Armani, the project is located in Lower Parel and being built on a 17.5-acre site of the defunct Shrinivas Mill.
At a sky-piercing, 117 floors and over 440 meters in height, World One in Mumbai will be the world’s tallest purely residential structure. The complex will feature swimming pools, gyms, a health club, and even a cricket pitch complete with pavilion. $321 million has been invested in the skyscraper so far and currently, this project is on hold.
=> Navi Mumbai International Aiport (NMIA):
NMIA is one of the biggest greenfield airport projects in the world which is expected to handle 10 million passengers in its first year of operation, and a capacity of 60 million per year by 2030.
NAMI will cover 11.6 square kilometers once built, with two parallel runways and a terminal building situated in between them. It will have to divert the nearby Ulwe River, flattening of hills, leveling the ground, and clearing green patches.
=> Diamond Quadrilateral project:
The Diamond Quadrilateral is a project of the Indian railways to establish a high-speed rail network in India. The Diamond Quadrilateral will connect the four megacities in India, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, similar to the Golden Quadrilateral expressway system.
A high-speed train on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad section will be the first high-speed train corridor to be implemented in the country. The project was launched in 2014 by the Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
=> The International north-south transport corridor:
The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is the ship, rail, and road route for moving freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe, and Central Asia. The current INSTC project was initiated by Russia, India, and Iran in September 2000 in St. Petersburg.
The modern-day INSTC is a multi-modal transportation route linking the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran, and then onward to northern Europe via St. Petersburg in Russia.
The route primarily involves moving freight from India, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia via ship, rail, and road. The objective of the corridor is to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali and etc.
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