Amid soaring praise for India’s Chenab Railway Bridge, one engineer at the center of the spotlight is pushing back — not against the achievement, but against the headlines.
“All other media statements like ‘woman behind the mission,’ ‘made impossible possible,’ and ‘done miracles to build the bridge’ are baseless,” wrote Dr. G Madhavi Latha, a geotechnical consultant on the project.
Latha, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science, played a technical role in the construction of the world’s highest railway bridge, which was inaugurated last week by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Chenab Bridge, built by Indian Railways in partnership with AFCONS, now spans a staggering 359 meters above the river in Jammu and Kashmir.
While media outlets and social media users rushed to celebrate her as a singular hero behind the engineering marvel, Latha rejected the narrative. “Please remember that I am one of the thousands who deserve appreciation for Chenab bridge,” she wrote in a widely shared LinkedIn post. “All glory of the planning, design and construction goes to Indian Railways and AFCONS.”
Her contribution, she clarified, was in the specialized area of slope stabilization and foundation design on difficult terrain — a critical but narrowly defined responsibility in a project that required the coordinated effort of hundreds of engineers, workers, and planners over several years.
Despite the misrepresentation, Latha expressed gratitude for the public’s support and shared the unexpected impact the attention has had. “Many fathers have written to me saying that they want their daughters to become like me,” she wrote. “Many young kids have written to me that they now want to take up Civil Engineering as their career choice.”
Still, she urged restraint. “Please don’t make me unnecessarily famous,” she added.
The Chenab Bridge is part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail project, a strategic and symbolic push to strengthen connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir. For Latha, though, the bridge is not about personal acclaim — it’s about teamwork and national progress. “There are millions of unsung heroes to whom I salute today.”
