Courtesy India Today

An India-Sri Lanka direct rail or road link needs just a 25-km-long bridge. The Pamban Bridge, recently inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi, completes a crucial part of a direct train from Chennai to Colombo. Planned by the British, and brought to the drawing table time and again, an India-Lanka rail link would boost both ties and trade.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week inaugurated the Pamban Bridge, which replaces the 110-year-old bridge built during British colonial rule. (PTI Image)

Board the Indo-Ceylon Express from Egmore station in Madras (now Chennai), ride through the eastern coastal plains, cross the Pamban Bridge into Rameshwaram, reach Dhanushkodi, the last Indian station, then sail across the Palk Strait to Talaimannar and catch a train straight to Colombo. That’s how most people travelled from Madras to Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, before 1964, the year when the Rameswaram cyclone ravaged coastal Tamil Nadu.advertisement

The cyclone of 1964 destroyed the 110-year-old Pamban Rail Bridge, Pamban island’s only link to mainland India. The cyclone bearing winds of over 150 kmph also destroyed the railway line connecting Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi, just 24 kilometres west of Sri Lanka’s Talaimannar. Since 1964, trains have been terminating at Rameshwaram, instead of Dhanushkodi.

Sixty-years later and a few kilometres away, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the newly constructed Pamban Bridgeon April 6, replacing the 110-year-old structure, it also revived a dream.

Some past developments, source-based reports, the recent resurgence in celebrating Ram’s heritage, and the AIADMK’s political posturing before the 2026 Tamil Nadu election, all suggest that the dice might be rolling behind closed doors, and a new bridge between India and Sri Lanka isn’t unlikely. The seamless rail connectivity to Rameshwaram offers an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a direct India–Sri Lanka rail link. And that would mean bridging the gap between Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka’s Talaimannar in Mannar Island, including another bridge or tunnel parallel to the Adam’s Bridge, also called the Rama Setu.advertisement

The 1964 cyclone didn’t just disrupt connectivity between India and Sri Lanka, it dealt a blow to a grander vision: a seamless rail link between the two nations and beyond, first envisioned by the British, later proposed by a few multilateral forums, and now, reportedly, a subject of some discussion and buzz.

The 110-year-old bridge served as the only connection to Rameshwaram, apart from ferries, from its commissioning in 1914 until 1988, when a parallel road bridge was constructed. The old bridge has been replaced by the one inaugurated recently by PM Modi.

The 1964 cyclone didn’t just destroy the rail link to Dhanushkodi, it also shattered the dream of a rail link all the way to Sri Lanka.