Financial Express
Bogibeel bridge, India’s longest rail-cum-road bridge, will be gifted to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 25! The Bogibeel bridge connects the north and south banks of the Brahmaputra river. Falling in the eastern part of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, it is a much-awaited rail-road bridge that will provide a huge connectivity boost to the North-East. PM Modi will inaugurate the Bogibeel bridge on December 25 which is also marked by the government as Good Governance Day, and is the birth anniversary of late AB Vajpayee.
The Bogibeel bridge spans over 4.94 kilometres and is located just over 20 km away from the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border. It spans over the Brahmaputra river in the north eastern state of Assam between Dhemaji district and Dibrugarh district. The bridge will connect the town of Dibrugarh in the south to Dhemaji to the river’s north. The bridge has two railway lines on its lower deck and a three-lane road bridge on the top.
While former PM HD Deve Gowda laid the foundation stone for the Bogibeel bridge in January 1997, the work started only in April 2002 when former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurated the construction work. Since then, the challenging railway project has missed several deadlines. However, with Modi government focusing on improving railway connectivity in the North-East, the work on the Bogibeel bridge was expedited and recently for the first time a freight train ran on it.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted a video of the first loaded freight train running over the Bogibeel bridge. He said that the development of Bogibeel Bridge is part of a larger effort by PM Narendra Modi to bring about growth & development in the North-East through infrastructure projects, in order to truly integrate the Seven Sisters with the mainland.
Bogibeel bridge will save time both in terms of road and rail travel. As of now, a train journey from Arunachal Pradesh to Assam’s Dibrugarh means a detour of 500 kilometres through Guwahati. But, after the Bogibeel bridge, the train journey will be of less than 100 kilometres. Additionally, Delhi to Dibrugarh train travel time will come down by about three hours to 34 hours as against 37 hours presently.
