Bihar Quiz: Transport: Railways, Roads and Ganga Bridges

The East Central Railway, created in 2002 when the railways were reorganised into new zones, has its headquarters at Hajipur in Vaishali district, and it is the only zonal headquarters of the Indian Railways in Bihar.

The bridge between Mokama and Simaria, opened in 1959 and inaugurated by Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, carried both a railway line and a road and was the first bridge of that kind over the Ganga anywhere in the country.

The Mahatma Gandhi Setu, about 5.75 kilometres long and opened in 1982, runs from Patna to Hajipur in Vaishali district, the town that also holds the headquarters of the East Central Railway, and it is the main road link between the capital and north Bihar.

Vikramshila Setu, about four and a half kilometres long and opened in 2001, joins Bhagalpur on the south bank with Naugachhia on the north, and it takes its name from the ancient university of Vikramshila, whose ruins stand in the same district at Antichak.

National Waterway 1 follows the Ganga, the Bhagirathi and the Hooghly from Haldia in West Bengal up to Prayagraj, and a long stretch of it passes through Bihar by Buxar, Patna, Munger and Bhagalpur.

The Ganga waterway from Haldia to Prayagraj, declared in 1986 as the first national waterway of the country, is 1,620 kilometres long, and under the Jal Marg Vikas Project its channel was deepened and terminals were built, including the multimodal terminal at Patna.

The great Bihar earthquake of 1934 destroyed the rail link across the Kosi between Nirmali and Saraigarh, and the river’s shifting course kept it broken for decades; the Kosi Rail Mahasetu, opened in 2020, restored the connection and cut the journey between Mithila and Kosi by hundreds of kilometres.

Gaya International Airport serves Bodh Gaya, the place of the Buddha’s enlightenment and the first place of pilgrimage for Buddhists everywhere, and it receives direct flights from Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and other Buddhist countries in the pilgrimage season, which is why it carries international status although it is a…

The bridge from Digha on the Patna side to Sonpur on the north bank is named after Jayaprakash Narayan, the leader of the movement of 1974 and a son of Saran district, and it carries both a railway line and a road, rail traffic having begun over it in 2016.

The East to West corridor, numbered 27 after the renumbering of the national highways, runs from Porbandar in Gujarat to Silchar in Assam, and its Bihar stretch passes through Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga and Purnia, opening up the Mithila and Seemanchal districts.

Although Katihar lies in Bihar, its division is one of the divisions of the Northeast Frontier Railway, the zone with its headquarters at Maligaon in Guwahati, because the lines there carry the traffic running towards north Bengal and the north east.