Bogibeel, India’s largest rail-cum-road bridge - All you need to know

1. The 4.94 km bridge is touted as the longest rail-and-road bridge in India and is situated 17 km downstream of Dibrugarh city in Assam. The bridge will provide connectivity between the rail network of the North and South banks of river Brahmaputra after the Saraighat rail-cum-road bridge at Guwahati

2. The Bogibeel Bridge was a part of Assam Accord 1985 and was sanctioned in 997-98. The foundation stone of the project was laid by then Prime Minister, H D Deve Gowda on January 22, 1997 but work on the project was flagged-off by then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee on April 21, 2002. It has already missed several deadlines

3. The BJP said that the inauguration of the bridge on the birth anniversary of late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a “fitting tribute” to the man who had commenced the project

4. With next road bridge 255 km away and next rail bridge 560 km away, the opening of Bogibeel bridge will save at least three hour of travel time between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. It will help people of both states to access medical facilities, education and access to the airport.

5. The construction of the bridge also assumes strategic importance as it will facilitate the rapid movement of troops along India’s nearly 4,000 km border with China.

6. The bridge, constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 5,900 crore, has a serviceable period of around 120 years, according to its chief engineer Mohinder Singh, as per PTI news agency.

7. The bridge has a two-line railway track on the lower deck and a three-lane road on the top deck. For the first time in Indian Railways, the girder has steel floor system for railway tracks and concrete for road.

8. Early floods in the river Brahmaputra restricted the working season to a very short period of approximately five months (from November to March) and demanded huge mobilization of construction equipment, as per Mohinder Singh

9. With transportation of concrete across river channels of 600 metre to 900 metre width from both the north and south banks the biggest challenge, the makers pumped concrete through a pipeline laid over buoys. 80, 000 tonnes of steel plates was delivered for the project via a combination of rail and road transport, while a 1,000 tonne hydraulic jack and strand jacks linked with the substructures were used for place the steel truss over the pillars

10. The bridge is part of infrastructure projects planned by India to improve logistics along the border in Arunachal Pradesh. This includes the construction of a trans-Arunachal highway on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, and new road and rail links over the river and its major tributaries such as the Dibang, Lohit, Subansiri and Kameng.