With reference to the New Pamban Bridge, which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. It was constructed by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, which is a 'Navratna' public sector unit under the Minist

Question

With reference to the New Pamban Bridge, which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. It was constructed by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, which is a 'Navratna' public sector unit under the Ministry of Railways.
2. It is India's first vertical lift railway sea bridge.
Select the correct answer from the code given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, Both 1 and 2. Statement 1 is correct: the New Pamban Bridge was executed by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), the project-execution arm incorporated in January 2003 and a Navratna central public sector enterprise under the administrative control of the Ministry of Railways; RVNL lists the work as reconstruction of the Pamban viaduct with a navigational lift span on the Manamadurai-Rameswaram section. Statement 2 is also correct: it is India's first vertical-lift railway sea bridge — a 72.5-metre central span that rises bodily on towers to let ships pass beneath, unlike any earlier Indian sea crossing. The bridge, about 2.08 km long with 99 spans plus the lift span, was inaugurated by the Prime Minister on 6 April 2025 (Ram Navami) — six months before this exam — and replaced the 1914 Pamban bridge to Rameswaram Island. Both statements being true, the answer is (b).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This rejects statement 1, but statement 1 is accurate on both counts — RVNL was indeed the executing agency, and RVNL does hold Navratna status under the Ministry of Railways. Candidates who remember RVNL as the builder but are unsure of its 'Navratna' tag are the ones this option is set to catch.  (c) Both statements are true, so nothing supports a blanket rejection. The bridge is an RVNL project and it is India's first vertical-lift railway sea bridge.  (d) This rejects statement 2, usually on the reasoning that Pamban already had a movable-span bridge in 1914 so the new one cannot be a 'first'. But the 1914 bridge used a Scherzer rolling-lift (bascule) span, which swings open like a drawbridge; the 2025 structure raises its whole central span vertically. Different mechanism — so 'India's first vertical-lift railway sea bridge' stands.

Concept: A movable bridge lets rail or road traffic cross a navigable channel while still allowing ships through. The two mechanisms in this question are different: a bascule or rolling-lift span pivots upward like a drawbridge, while a vertical-lift span stays horizontal and is hoisted straight up between towers. The Pamban crossing links the Tamil Nadu mainland to Rameswaram Island across the shallow Palk Strait, and because ships must pass through, both the 1914 bridge and its 2025 replacement needed a movable navigational span. The new structure is delivered by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, a Ministry of Railways CPSE created specifically to execute rail infrastructure projects outside the normal departmental route.

State PCS 2025 Q14 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q14 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer