Kareng Chapori (Assam), Dec 25:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his government has changed the “dilly-dallying” work culture regarding implementation of development projects. Addressing a rally here after inaugurating the country’s longest rail-cum-road bridge, at Bogibeel in Assam, he said completion of projects within a given time frame is no longer confined to paper but has become a reality. “We have changed the earlier ‘latkane bhatkane’ (dilly-dallying) work culture… Completion of projects within a time frame is no longer confined to paper but has become a truth in the real sense,” he said in a apparent dig at the previous Congress-led UPA government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 4.94 km-long Bogibeel bridge over Brahmaputra river, which is country’s longest rail-cum-road bridge, on Tuesday. December 25 also happens to be former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birth anniversary as well as the Good Governance Day. Modi, who arrived at Dibrugarh from New Delhi, crossed the bridge from the southern bank in Dibrugarh to Jonai in the northern side, where he addressed a massive public rally. On his way, he also flagged off the first passenger train from Tinsukia in Assam to Naharlagun in Arunachal Pradesh. “The Bogibeel bridge is not just any other bridge but a lifeline for lakhs of people of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh,” Modi said after quoting few lines from one of Bhupen Hazarika’s songs on Brahmaputra which the singer has referred to as the meeting point of cultures. Calling it a tribute to the memory of Vajpayee, the Prime Minister said that BogibeelBridge would have been ready by 2008-09 had the late former PM been elected for a second term. “About 16 years ago, Atal Ji came here. He had a vision for the development of the Bogibeel Bridge. This Bridge is also a tribute to that vision,” he said, adding that key infrastructure projects of Vajpayee’s era could not be completed after his government lost power in 2004. Twenty-one years in the making, the bridge will take railway connectivity the closest it has ever been to the China border. Bogibeel is the sixth bridge over the Brahmaputra. “Only three bridges were built over Brahmaputra in more than six decades. But, in last four and half years, NDA government is privileged to complete three bridges over the river. Besides Bogibeel, Assam is also privileged to have the Dhola-Sadiya bridge, which I opened in May last year,” Modi said. The bridge at Bogibeel, along with the Dhola-Sadiya bridge, will open up multiple passages for the movement of troops to the remote districts of Anjaw, Changlang, Lohit, Lower Dibang Valley, Dibang Valley and Tirap in Arunachal Pradesh.
Situated 17km downstream of Dibrugarh city, the bridge will connect the southern banks of the Brahmaputra at Dibrugarh with the northern banks near Dhemaji, taking trains to Assam’s eastern-most point at Murkongselek near the inter-state border with Arunachal Pradesh, about an 8-177-km drive to the Chinese border in the north.
This bridge will also provide an alternate and shorter connectivity from Dibrugarh in eastern part of Assam through the northern banks of the Brahmaputra with Delhi and Kolkata via Rangiya. The distance from Dibrugarh to Rangiya will be reduced by 170 km, while the road distance from Dibrugarh to Arunachal capital, Itanagar, will be reduced by 150 km. The railway travel distance between these two points will be reduced by 705 km.
