To be completed after 13 yrs in 2015, road-cum-rail Bogibeel bridge in Assam promises to be a lifeline for the North-East
In the city of Dibrugarh of Assam, it rains eight months a year. So any construction activity, especially on the Brahmaputra river, is a challenge. But when this reporter visited the construction site of Bogibeel bridge, the longest rail-cum-road bridge in the country at 4.94 km, the engineers and labourers were making the most of a clear day.
Incessant rain is not the only challenge the project faces. It has been in the making for ten years now ? foundation of the bridge was laid in 2002 and the project was supposed to be completed in six years. But lack of funds and attention led to no work till 2007, when the project was granted national status. Granting this status ensured that the Union finance ministry provided 75% funds for the project, while 25% was to be borne by the Railways. Earlier, the Railways had to bear 100% cost of the project. The new target for completion is December 2015, so that the bridge can be operational from 2016.
Chief engineer Ajit Pandit admitted to cost escalation as well. ?The rise in the cost of cement and steel are also factors responsible for the cost escalation,? he said at the site. Work on the bridge was sanctioned in 1997-98 and since then, the Railways has revised the estimated cost of the project from the initial R1,767 crore to R3,230 crore. So far, a total of R2,404 crore have been spent on the bridge.
But once complete, the bridge, situated 17 km downstream of Dibrugarh, will be the lifeline of the North-East by facilitating connectivity between north and south of the Brahmaputra river in the eastern region of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The border of Arunachal Pradesh is just over 20 km from the northern bank. The rail link will connect two existing railway networks running at south bank and north bank of the river. It starts from Chaulkhowa station and Moranhat station at south bank and joins in between Sisibargaon station and Siripani station of Rangiya-Murkongselek section in north bank.
The bridge will improve connectivity between the two banks immensely. Right now, it takes 1.5 hours to cross the river, but after the bridge is built, the travel time would be reduced to a few minutes. Besides, movement of goods would also be possible on a larger scale. The bridge will also be of great strategic importance for the country as it will provide quick movement between the two states and can be useful to neutralise any threat from China, which borders Arunachal .
Even the engineers working on the project are looking forward to its completion. ?We are waiting for the day when this project is completed. It will be a big help in improving connectivity in the region,? says one of them.
Pandit and his team get about only four months in a year to work on the project. They normally work from November to March to construct the bridge. This means that from now till December 2015, effectively they will get only a little over 12 months to finish work.
The construction work of the sub-structure of the bridge was awarded to Gammon India in April 2008. After the sub-structure is completed, work on the superstructure would commence.
The Railways has also taken the help of Denmark- and Germany-based companies to build the project. The cost of the superstructure would be nearly R1,000 crore and the work has been awarded to HCC.