Who is Madhavi Latha, IISc professor who spent 17 years helping build J&K’s Chenab Bridge?

The Chenab Bridge in Jammu and Kashmir has been inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The world’s highest railway arch bridge, unveiled on Friday (June 6), is an engineering marvel.

It is a part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project (USBRL), which will provide all-weather rail connectivity between the Kashmir Valley and the rest of India. The Chenab Bridge stands high at 359 metres (1,178 feet) above the Chenab riverbed, 35 metres taller than the Paris’ Eiffel Tower.

The construction of the bridge was a major challenge due to the region’s harsh terrain. An expert in rock engineering gave her 17 years to help build the 1,315 metres long bridge.

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But who is she? We will take a look.

Madhavi Latha’s role in building Chenab Bridge

G Madhavi Latha, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc), spent 17 years on the Chenab Bridge project as a geotechnical consultant.

A specialist in rock engineering, she was roped in by the Northern Railways and the Chenab bridge project contractor Afcons to advise them on slope stabilisation and bridge foundation.
This was to ensure the bridge could withstand very harsh natural conditions, including wind speeds of more than 220 kmph.

With a lifespan of 120 years, the Chenab bridge can resist high-velocity winds with speeds up to 260 kmph, extreme temperatures, earthquakes, and hydrological impacts if water levels rise.

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The Chenab bridge’s design and construction have been done by a joint venture comprising Afcons Infrastructure, South Korea-based Ultra Construction & Engineering Company, and VSL India.

Speaking to Deccan Herald (DH), Latha said, “IISc was the consultant for slope stabilisation and foundation, whereas foreign firms were involved in making the steel arch. Planning of the bridge started in 2005, and it was completed in 2022 when trial runs with full-speed trains were carried out.”

This unsupported steel arch has a length of about half a kilometre. It rests on the left and right abutments, along with eight piers, on the slopes.

During the construction, Professor Latha’s team adopted a “design-as-you-go" approach, meaning they had to adapt in real-time depending on geological conditions such as fractured rocks, hidden cavities, and different rock properties, not evident in early surveys.

Last month, the article, Design as You Go: The Case Study of Chenab Railway Bridge, published in the Women’s Special issue of the Indian Geotechnical Journal by Dr Latha laid out the challenges that they faced while constructing the bridge over the past 17 years.

“The construction of a civil engineering marvel like the Chenab bridge posed many challenges from planning to completion. A rigid design with fixed dimensions and pre-determined solutions would not have been feasible, considering the continuously evolving geological and geotechnical conditions,” she noted in the article.

“The design-as-you-go approach adopted in this project made the construction of the bridge possible despite the critical challenges encountered in every stage during the 17 years of its construction period,” the professor added.

Due to high rock discontinuities and steep slopes, a major challenge was to construct the Chenab bridge ’s arch abutments and foundations for piers on the slopes.

The solution found by Latha and other project engineers was to use the technique of cement grouting with pieces of rock and steel rods for reinforcement, reported DH.

Who is Madhavi Latha?

Professor Madhavi Latha completed her PhD in geotechnical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. She was teaching at IIT Guwahati before she joined the IISc in 2004.

Dr Latha, who was the first female faculty member at IISc at the time, had to fight to get a toilet for women.

“Back then, there were no exclusive toilets for women in the department. There were only men’s toilets. I had to really fight to get a women’s toilet in the geotechnical engineering building,” IISc says on its website, quoting the professor.

Soon after PM Modi inaugurated the Chenab bridge, IISc took to X to laud her, “We are proud of Prof Madhavi Latha & her team’s contribution to the #ChenabBridge inaugurated by Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi. The team worked on stability of slopes, design & construction of foundations, design of slope stabilisation systems, incl. rock anchors to withstand hazards.”

BJP MP Tejasvi Surya also hailed Latha for her contributions to building the Chenab bridge.
Congratulating the civil engineer, he wrote, “Your role in this engineering marvel inspires young minds, especially women in STEM, to lead in nation-building.”

Congratulations to Prof. Madhavi Latha of @iiscbangalore for your remarkable contribution to the #ChenabBridge — the world’s highest railway arch bridge, inaugurated today by PM Shri @NarendraModi.

Your role in this engineering marvel inspires young minds, especially women in… pic.twitter.com/ONfQqpuDwE

— Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) June 6, 2025

Latha is currently the Chair of the Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST). She has won laurels over the years. In 2021, Latha bagged the Best Woman Geotechnical Researcher award by the Indian Geotechnical Society. She also made it to the Top 75 Women in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) of India in 2022.

With inputs from agencies