The longest bridge in the country will come up in Assam soon. Twin bridges running along 126 kilometres will stretch from Sivasagar in Upper Assam, connecting the river island Majuli to the rest of the state.
“The project, running up to Rs 15,000 crores, has been sanctioned by the Centre. A South Korean company is working on a detailed project report (DPR) which will take a year to complete,” Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal told DNA.
The bridges, Sonowal said, will start at the Nitai Pukhuri bridge in Sivasagar, pass via the Tekeli Phuta bridge in Dhakuakhana, from where the bridge will trifurcate and connect Majuli island at the ports at Kamalabari and at Nemati.
Majuli, the biggest river island in the world, was earlier part of the Jorhat district, and is Sonowal’s constituency. He had promised to declare Majuli a district and build a bridge to connect it to the mainland. Majuli has now been declared a district.
Sonowal also said the state is also working on the island’s problem of erosion. “We are working on a project to dredge the riverbed so that it can hold more water. This will allow for the passage for ships of up to 10,000 metric tonnes via the river,” he added.
The CM said that the sand that will be deposited on both sides of the river will be converted into national highways to stop the erosion. Sonowal added that the idea was mooted by the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari.
Waterways as a mode of transport has been largely ignored, he said. “The British used the Brahmaputra to transport Digboi’s oil, Margherita’s coal and Tinsukia and Dibrugarh’s tea, on to Bangladesh via the Padma, and then on to other parts of the world to develop a global trade environment. The river is the cheapest mode of travel. If rail transport costs you a rupee and road transport Rs 1.5, river transport costs only 30 paise,” said Sonowal.
Source: DNA, New Delhi dated 2017-04-01.
