PM inagurated country’s longest rail-cum-road bridge over the Brahmaputra at Bogibeel near Dibrugarh in Assam

At 4.94 km, the double-decker structure is India’s longest.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 25 inaugurated the country’s longest rail-cum-road bridge over the Brahmaputra at Bogibeel near Dibrugarh in Assam.

After reaching Dibrugarh in the afternoon from New Delhi, Mr. Modi directly flew to Bogibeel in a chopper and inaugurated the 4.94-km-long double-decker bridge from the southern bank of the river.

Mr. Modi along with Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi and Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal also walked a few metres on the bridge.

The strategically important bridge over the mighty Brahmaputra will remove communication bottlenecks to several districts in Arunachal Pradesh.

The bridge, which begins at Dibrugarh and ends at Dhemaji districts of Assam, will connect parts of Arunachal Pradesh by road as well as the railway.

bogibeel-bridge why is it so important

he Bogibeel Bridge, which was a part of the Assam Accord and sanctioned in 1997-98, is likely to play a crucial role in defence movement along the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh.

‘NDA govt changed dilly-dallying work culture of the past’

After inaugurating the bridge, the Prime Minister flagged off the Tinsukia-Naharlagun Intercity Express, which will run five days a week and use the 4.9-km bridge to cut down the train-travel time between Tinsukia in Assam to Naharlagun town of Arunachal Pradesh by more than 10 hours.

Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh is just over 15 km from Naharlagun.

Addressing a rally at Kareng Chapori after inaugurating the bridge, Mr. Modi said said completion of projects within a given time frame is no longer confined to paper but has become a reality.

“We have changed the earlier latkane bhatkane (dilly-dallying) work culture… Completion of projects within a time frame is no longer confined to paper but has become a truth in the real sense,” he said in an apparent dig at the previous Congress-led UPA government.

If former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had a second term, Bogibeel Bridge would have been ready by 2008-09. After his government, no attention was paid to the project till 2014, the Prime Minister said.

Asserting that the Bogibeel bridge will strengthen the country’s defence prowess with movement of vehicles and trains, he said, it is not only a bridge, it is a lifeline for crores of people in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

The bridge will cut down rail distance (between Dibrugarh in Assam to Naharlagun in Arunachal Pradesh) to below 200 km from 700 km now, Mr. Modi said.