The Bogibeel Bridge will be ready for inspection by Commissioner of Railway Safety by the second week of October.
This was informed to the Chairman of Railway Board (CRB) Ashwini Lohani by NF Railway General Manager Sanjeev Roy during a review meeting held through video-conferencing this afternoon.
All the General Managers of zonal railways were connected through a video-link in the meeting, where the CRB reviewed progress of construction of new lines, gauge conversion and doubling of railway lines, track renewal, railway electrification and elimination of unmanned railway level-crossings.
Roy said that NF Railway has set a target for track renewal of 288 km of broad gauge line. Apart from this, 192 km of gauge conversion and commissioning of 95 km of new broad gauge line will be done within this financial year.
The river, more than 10 km wide in several stretches, now awaits the completion of its fourth and easternmost span — the country's longest road-rail bridge at 4.94 km — that India's defence forces and residents of the eastern half of the Northeast have been demanding for almost five decades.
"The Bogibeel bridge will usher in a new era of economic development in the region, apart from strengthening national security in the border areas," AssamChief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said, following a recent visit to inspect progress on the construction of the bridge.
Sited about 17 km downstream of Dibrugarh town, the bridge will facilitate road and rail connectivity between the north and south banks of the Brahmaputra in the eastern part of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
"A lot of emotion is attached to this bridge because it was part of the Assam Accord of 1985, but it is taking a long time," said Lurinjyoti Gogoi, general secretary of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU).
For the construction wing of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) that is undertaking the project, it is better late than never given the unpredictability of the Brahmaputra and instability of its banks.
