Modi opens newly-built Bogibeel Bridge

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the Bogibeel Bridge at a ceremony on Tuesday. This new bridge, which connects the north and south banks of the turbulent Brahmaputra river in the eastern parts of Assam, is India’s longest combined rail and road bridge.

The nearly five-kilometer long bridge cost 59 billion Indian rupiah (around 4 billion U.S. dollars) to build. Sitting about 30 meters above the river, it has a three-lane road on the top deck and two-line railway track on the lower deck.

Besides the main bridge, the construction project also includes dykes on the north and south banks, a 30-kilometer road network, a 74-kilometer rail network, and six new railway stations. The journey from Dibrugarh to Delhi currently takes more than 37 hours, but thanks to the new bridge, travel time is expected to fall to around three hours.

The superstructure of the bridge was built by the joint venture led by the Hindustan Construction Company. The company said that 70,000 metric tons of steel were used to complete the superstructure, which is the equivalent of 10 Eiffel Towers.

Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda laid the foundation stone for the Bogibeel Bridge in January 1997, but work on the project only began in April 2002 when former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee started construction, which was originally scheduled to end in 2009.

Prime Minister Modi said that for the past four-and-a-half years his government has pursued the goal of good governance, and the historic Bogibeel bridge is a symbol of this objective.